


Sigil

by FeatherBlack (jatty)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Demon Summoning, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Murder, Torture, Whipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-07-19 23:46:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19982542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jatty/pseuds/FeatherBlack
Summary: As punishment for thwarting the Apocalypse, those Below create a webpage with all the information necessary to summon the demon Crawley—anywhere, any time. Even the most feebly constructed summoning seal will work, though not necessarily for long.While Crowley is dealing with this new and frequent pattern of interruptions, he's also trying to make sense of his closeness to Aziraphale. Too bad for him, the day he makes a move is the day he's bound within a proper seal by a group of people with less than respectful demands.Will Crowley get out in one piece, or will he be torn to shreds when the humans grow bored of his magic?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'm so excited to see you here! I really hope you like this story! It starts off very humorous and then takes a nosedive into horror. 
> 
> I'm sorry for how addicted I am to Hurt!Crowley. I can't help it! 
> 
> Please let me know what you think! Comments are my mana!

The first time it happened, Crowley had been at home in his flat—alone and dreaming up something to do to pass the time since Aziraphale was busy “going over the books.” Whatever that meant in a shop that maybe sold three volumes in a year.

He had been minding his own businesses, staring off into space and seeing nothing outside his uncovered window, and the next he was being gaped at by two pimple-faced teenagers who stuttered and stammered at him in German. 

“Ah, hell!” Crowley had exclaimed, grimacing as he looked up and down at the watery blue light encasing him. He’d been summoned! Evocation of any demon wasn’t typically easy and Crowley hadn’t seen it done properly in at least two centuries. (For himself, had only ever had it done twice and once was by that bloody angel when he’d tried to leave Rome.) How the hell had two German teenagers managed to pull it off? “What’s this about? Don’t you realize I have things to do?”

He didn’t so much care that he spoke English and they German. He could correct his speech in an instant if he wanted to—could speak directly into their minds if he wanted to. Their summoning circle was crudely drawn and incorrectly written, meaning he could walk out of it or return home as quickly as he pleased. Honestly, it should never have disturbed him at all! 

“You—You are English speaking!” One of the teenagers called out.

Crowley ignored them and instead spun around slowly while staring at the floor, taking in the horribly executed circle and the distinct lack of an offering at his feet. 

“Where… Where is my offering? What, you pull me out of my home, drag me all the way here to the middle of nowhere, and you don’t even have any wine?”

“Wine?” The two said in unison, looking at each other in horror. 

“No scotch?” Crowley asked, holding out his hands in disdain. “No sacrificial goat or a dead virgin? Nothing? Nothing… What a waste of my time coming here. And where’s your circle of protection? What are you doing? If I had half a mind to do it, I could walk over there and make _you_ eat _her_ liver!” He said, pointing at each of them in turn. 

The two stared at him in horror and surprise, clearly at a loss of what to do now that their little experiment had worked. They were lucky they were so dense, Crowley thought, or he really would have done something to make them suffer for their idiocy. Instead, he settled for a final well directed insult, snapped his fingers, and vanished back home. 

He had immediately left home, too, in order to drive to Aziraphale’s shop. For what else did one do after being the victim of a kidnapping but recant the ordeal to his best friend?

“I haven’t heard of a successful evocation in centuries!” Aziraphale exclaimed as he poured out some tea. “And if it really was as poorly conducted as you say, why, it’s a miracle it even worked!”

“That’s what I thought!” Crowley responded with the same level of surprise. “I haven’t been summoned since _you_ summoned me in Rome! And what a bloody nightmare that was!”

“It took quite the miracle to get that spell to work, even for me,” Aziraphale said thoughtfully, handing Crowley his teacup and then taking a seat beside him on the couch. “However did they manage it?”

“I don’t know. They certainly weren’t expert sorcerers! Didn’t have an offering, no seal of protection. Not a thing! What fools! If I were Hastur or...or any of the others—if I were _any_ other demon, they wouldn’t have left that stuffy little bedroom with their lives!”

“It was in their _bedroom_ you say? What were they expecting to do with a demon trapped in a seal in their bedroom? Wouldn’t their parents wonder what was about?”

“Who knows, Angel. But I’m glad that’s done,” Crowley said, settling in and drinking his tea. 

He’d truly thought it had been a fluke and it was all behind him. 

However, two months later, it happened again. 

He had been in the shop again, waiting for a customer to get out so he could take the angel to lunch. He was considering going serpent and crawling along the shelves to scare the old man off, but before he could muster the strength, he was crashing down onto the floor of a parking garage with headlights blinding him.

“What in the actual _hell!?”_ He had screamed, getting to his feet in a rage and flourishing his wings. At his feet was a dead racoon, its organs all taken out as if being readied for Egyptian mummification. “That’s disgusting! I don’t want _that!”_ Crowley hissed, staring out of the watery blue glow of his summoning circle at a businessman in a dated suit. “What do you want!?”

“I-I have called upon you, oh great demon Crawley—”

“Well, I’ll stop you right there, ‘cause that’s not me. Crawley, nope. Wrong address. And what the _hell_ kind of offering is that!?” He asked, pointing down at the mess of fur and blood and organs. 

“But… Wait—Wait, no! No, you are the demon Crawley! I summoned you using your sigil and offer you this sacrifice—”

“I don’t want this sacrifice! And _where_ is your protection circle? What’s gotten into you people!?”

“I command that you—”

“Command!? You what?” Crowley took one step forward and came to rest outside the summoning circle—almost as poorly constructed as the teenagers’ had been. He took off his sunglasses, effectively scaring the man so badly the front of his trousers became darkened with piss. “What demon wants a bloody heap of carcass for an offering? What _demon_ goes around following orders of a mere human? Not this one—no! Not this one, I say!” 

The next thing that idiot man knew, he was in as many pieces as the raccoon had been. Crowley had put it back together and let it go off about its business, eating trash and walking out in front of cars. 

Crowley snapped himself back to Aziraphale’s shop, scared off the customer by simply telling him to get out or die, and took the angel to lunch.

“This is becoming a problem!” Crowley had said over his second glass of champagne. “I can’t keep popping up all over the world at a moment’s notice. I have very important things to be doing!”

“Yes… It’s quite strange. Was his seal any better than the last?”

“No! And I—” Crowley realized it probably wasn’t the best idea for him to admit to slaughtering the man over Aziraphale’s meal. “—I told him he really should have a circle of protection because the next demon won’t take so kindly to a roadkill offering.”

“I would imagine not! What a disgusting thing to do. At least the old world sorcerers had known what they were doing. It’s never polite to just snap a demon out of thin air on a whim. They always made sure their offering fit the crime! What was it that old warlock gave you back in the days of the Pyramids?”

“A harp, for starters. Wine and beer. A lion pelt… Er, dates and fruit. Oh—and the promise of my own Pyramid.”

“Whatever happened with that? I never asked.”

“He became the most powerful sorcerer in Egypt, Moses came, and that was that. I never did get my Pyramid. The wine was good though. Wish I still had that. I’d do a lot for a bottle of wine these days,” he said, and finished off the rest of his champagne flute. 

The next summoning doesn’t happen for another few months. Crowley was on his own, sitting in his Bentley because he couldn’t bring himself to either get out or start to drive. He wanted to go see Aziraphale, but was also had something burning in the back of his mind that he was afraid he might say if he did, in fact, go to see Aziraphale. He was torn between convincing himself it was a bad idea, and promising himself it’d be fine whether he said it or not.

Then, all of sudden, he was falling onto his side into an oval shaped summoning seal that didn’t even have his sigil written properly at the center. 

This was such a bloody joke!

Crowley rolled onto all fours and then clamored to his feet, brushing off the dust while simultaneously taking in all the missteps in this seal. How in the hell could it be working!? How had so many people found out about him?

“What’s my offering this time? Carcass of Cat a la mode?” Crowley hissed before he realized the person he was talking to stood only about to the height of his hip. A child? Seriously, a small child had been able to summon him?

This was the work of Hell is what this was. This was his punishment from Below. Satan was allowing his presence to be sent to literally anyone who asked, whether the ritual was performed properly or not. That was just fucking cruel. 

“Hello. What’s this?” Crowley asked, staring down at a little basket at his feet.

“Th-they s-s-said o-on th-the w—w-website th-that I sh-should g—”

“Give an offering?” Crowley asked, just to put the child out of his misery. The thing couldn’t be any older than nine, and was clutching a darkened flashlight to his chest in absolute terror. That was when Crowley realized he was in a tiny bedroom with the lights off—he could hear a television playing somewhere else in the house.

“Y-Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir! I could get used to that,” Crowley said, leaning down to see what was in the basket. There was a bread roll, a pre-packaged cupcake, and a snack pack of some kind that had crackers, cheese, and meat. (It also happily advertised a snack size candy bar for dessert.) 

“I-I c-can give you m-my firetruck i-if th-that’s n-not enough,” the little boy said, his whole body starting to tremble.

“Nope. This is fine. I’ll take this,” Crowley said, pulling the basket into his circle—well, oval, really. “What do you ask of me?” 

“I-I wondered i-if you could h-help me.”

“Help you? Yes. I am a very helpful demon. Lots of people been asking for my help these days. What’s your name?”

“Jonah.”

“Jonah! Having trouble with the whales?” The child stared at him in silence. “Ah, never mind. What do you ask of me, Master Jonah?” He repeated, playing along with the ritual. 

“I-I need t-to get at least a B on m-my science p-project or I’ll g-get in tr-trouble again and my n-new dad won’t l-like me.”

As a rule, demons typically didn’t pity—not angels, not other demons, and certainly not small children. Crowley had never actually been quite that good at rules. He was perhaps as good at rules as the new laws surrounding evocation, apparently. 

“And so you just...stayed,” Aziraphale said, nodding drunkenly—sloshing the scotch in his glass with each motion.

“What was I supposed to do? Leave him there all alone, say ‘tough luck and ta ta for now?’ ‘Course I stayed. We fixed up the project and I put the fear of...well, _me_ into that bastard of a stepfather. He won’t ever be causing Jonah any more trouble. Who tells their kid they won’t like them anymore?”

“Kids do get strange ideas on their own, you know,” Aziraphale said, sipping more scotch and then passing an all too friendly, all too affectionate smile in Crowley’s direction. 

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?” And the look was gone so fast Crowley might’ve thought he’d imagined it. 

A detail Crowley had forgot to mention to Aziraphale that night was the website Jonah had mentioned. Crowley had, for the most part, forgotten it too—distracted as he was by the injustice shown to the little boy by his heartless stepfather. That was alright. Not even a week later, Crowley learned all he needed to about this awful series of events.

He’d been summoned while in the middle of taking out one of his plants and, therefore, the plant came with him into the summoning circle. 

“Ah, you spelled my name right,” Crowley said, having perhaps finally—horribly—gotten used to this. This seal was better than the others, clearly scribed by an artist’s hands, but it was still wrong in so many different ways. “Still no protection seal though… Do you people all secretly have a death wish? Do you _really_ not think it’s important to have at least an _attempt_ at a barrier between yourself and a demonic entity? I could _kill_ you in an instant!”

It was another teenager again. An older teenage boy this time, with better skin and hair. He was stammering a lot like Jonah, and making vague gestures toward Crowley’s feet.

“D-Demon Crawley! I-I have summoned you forth from th-the realm of Hell—”

“No, you summoned me from my plant room. Here—have a fichus. Now what have you got to offer me.”

“Uh—Uh… I-I have offered here this bottle of wine,” the boy said, fumbling around—seemingly afraid to set down the plant Crowley had handed him moments before. In the end, he offered Crowley a cheap, 4% ABV blackberry wine no doubt made purple with food coloring. “A-And a pr-promise of more to come i-if ye render your services to me—thee! To thee.”

“None of this is even right,” Crowley said, throwing the bottle aside and smashing it against the leg of some scuffed up table. “Is this your basement?”

“Uh… My mom’s yeah,” he said.

“Well does your mom have any good liquor or are you wasting my time here?”

“I-I think my dad’s got some beer…?”

“Beer. Yes, fine. I’ll take a beer and something sweet. Your mom got any pies up there? Some scones? Anything sweet, really.”

“Um… I-I can go check,” the kid said, but remained still. Crowley lowered his sunglasses.

“Go. Check.”

“Right! Right, sorry Mr. Crawley!”

Crowley rolled his eyes and looked at his surroundings, taking in the dim and gloomy basement. Moments later, the boy returned with the fichus under his arm, a bottle of beer, and half a pie in a glass dish. Homemade. Perfect. Aziraphale would love it.

“Uh—these here are, uh, my offerings to—”

“Yeah, we’re past that part. What do you want?” Crowley asked, taking the bottle of beer and snapping his fingers to get the cap to pop off. 

“W-Well, Mr. Crawley—”

“Cr _ow_ ley. Crowley. Not Crawley. It’s Crowley.”

“Oh… We’ve gotta update your Wiki then. Everybody can’t be going around calling you with the wrong name.”

“Just tell me what you want,” Crowley snapped before taking a sip of the beer. Oh, disgusting. Light beer. Awful. Americans, awful. No. “Here, take this. This is gross.”

“Oh! D-Do you command something else, Mr. Crowley?”

“I command to know what the fuck you want from me,” Crowley said, looking over the pie dish and hoping it wasn’t as awful as that beer.

“I-I read on your Wiki page that you are a master of temptation.”

“Master of temptation? Oh, yes. I’ve tempted the best of the best. That’s right—wait, what’s this about a Wiki?” So, for the next forty minutes, the teenager showed him his own little web page on the internet complete with Bio, Details, and How To Summon. 

According to this page, the demon Crawley has made a pact with Lucifer to appear to all who seek his presence.

Fucking demons…

Who showed Satan how to work the internet?

“See? It says that you’ll show up, but you only have to perform the deeds requested if you accept our offerings and praise. It didn’t say what you liked though, but this forum I went on, this German guy said you asked for wine. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to start there. But I guess I was wrong.”

“I’ve been alive six millennia and you gave me dyed fruit juice. Still better than the disemboweled raccoon but not the best offering for a demon. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Well, I… I didn’t really think you’d show up.”

“Well, now I’m here. So what is it?”

“You’re the master of temptation… So, do you think you could tempt this girl I like to go to prom with me?”

“Prom? What’s that? What’s this prom?” Crowley asked, scrolling through his Wiki page with an ever-deepening frown.

“It’s like a dance. A formal dance. Girls get all dressed up and you give them flowers—”

“That’s a wedding.”

“No. It’s a school dance. I want her to go, but she doesn’t know I exist.”

“This girl has a boyfriend then?” Crowley asked, shaking his head—eyes still on the screen.

“No. Not that I know of, anyway.”

“So here’s what you’ll do then.”

“Okay,” the kid said, far too eagerly.

“You’ll wear something flashy, but not like...70s disco flashy. Look descent, maybe clean up your shoes or something. Go to her after school when she’s not with all her friends, and ask if she wants to go.”

“But she doesn’t know me!”

“She does,” Crowley said, snapping his fingers for no reason at all. He couldn’t make some girl he didn’t know fall in love with some kid she didn’t know. “And she’ll be ecstatic. Tell her you have reservations for dinner wherever she wants to go. Works for me every time.”

“You take girls to prom, Mr. Crawley?”

“No, I take angels to the Ritz. But I doubt that’s within your budget. Trust me. Teenage girls want asked to prom. They don’t care by whom.”

After satisfying himself with the information on the Wiki page, Crowley grabbed up the pie and snapped his fingers—leaving behind the boy and his unruly fichus. 

“And who made this...wonderful...thing?” Aziraphale asked, smiling so painfully at the pie Crowley handed him.

“A woman who thinks four-percent ABV makes for a good wine.”

“Oh… Oh, heavens. This is dangerous then,” Aziraphale said, setting the pie pan aside. “Summoned again, were you?”

“To America. I figured this out though. I think Satan himself is behind it. Someone put all of my information on the internet. My sigil, how to perform evocation, everything! Apparently, it didn’t bother mentioning anything about what to make for an offering or how to create a seal of protection—but I bet that’s so the idiots piss me off and I can send their souls to Hell. Keepin’ up with quota and all that.”

“But you haven’t… Have you?”

Crowley, realizing suddenly what he said, bit his tongue.

“Have I what?”

“Killed any of them?”

“Er… No. No, of course not. Because that would make me very _bad._ The angel might not like that,” he said, lips curling in a playful smile that Aziraphale pursed his lips at unpleasantly. 

“You monster...” 

“He disemboweled a raccoon! C’mon, Angel! It was nasty! I just...did an eye for an eye. Old Testament. I was feeling the call of the old days.”

“You were feeling wicked is what you were,” Aziraphale continued to pout. 

“I helped that little boy with his homework. Surely that counts for something.”

“Promise me you won’t kill any more of your summoners. It’s not their fault Satan has weakened the requirements for calling upon you.”

“Always so proper, Angel,” Crowley said with a false air of annoyance. 

They played that game with each other for at least two days straight. The pie, it turned out, was actually very tasty—so delightful, in fact, Crowley snapped the dish back to the teenager’s house with a thank you note (that may have also carried the threat of ‘summon me again and burn in eternal hellfire’).

Crowley had three or four more evocations after that—only one memorable one which was a coven of naked witches who offered him themselves. He quickly snapped himself right out of that one without a word or jest. 

He’d started spending most of his time in the bookshop after that one. Witches were a little more dangerous than teenagers and desperate businessmen. He was afraid someone might perform a ritual properly, that someone might actually seal him and not give him permission to leave. If that were the case, he’d like Aziraphale—someone—to actually know he was missing. The Angel didn’t seem to mind.

They spent their nights drinking, reminiscing, and their days pouring over books. Well, Aziraphale poured; Crowley listened to him read. 

One lazy, hot afternoon, he listened while the two of them were sat on the couch. Aziraphale was sat, anyway, Crowley was sprawled all over the thing in an attempt to get comfortable as a man when all he wanted was to let his scales out and bask in the sunbeams coming in the window. He stretched out more and more, and more and more as Aziraphale’s words danced around his head. Slowly, so slowly, he was inclining his head closer to the angel’s leg beside him on the cushion. 

Today, he decided. Today, he would do it. Today, he would make a move—just a little one. Aziraphale might not even notice. Yesss…

Crowley reached out carefully with his hand, moving so slowly the sun had almost set by the time his hand closed over the angel’s knee. 

Yessss.

Aziraphale’s voice fluctuated a little at the touch, but he didn’t stop reading and he didn’t jerk away. 

Crowley closed his eyes, a smile pulling his lips up further than should ever be natural for a man of any kind. 

And then he was slammed into the ground, his neck bent at an unnatural angle, his legs forced upwards as if he’d been dropped upside down into a chimney. When he opened his eyes, he was staring at dirt and straw, white paint, and a watery blue light that kept him trapped. 

Trapped.

“No… No, no, no. Fuck!” Crowley flailed gracelessly in order to get turned up right. He only had just enough space inside the summoning circle to sit with his legs crossed—and even then his knees were dangerously close the confines of the seal. 

Someone had finally pulled it off.

“Demon Crawley!” A man screamed, forcing Crowley’s attention up from the seal beneath him. 

Across from him stood a man in his forties, scruffy-faced with bloodshot eyes. Next to him stood a younger man, maybe in his twenties, who looked as if he must’ve peaked in high school—probably on the rugby team. There was another, scrawny twenty-something man, and a blond woman his age whose face was creased with disgust and fear. (Did Crowley really look that frightening without his glasses?) The last person was a dark-skinned woman who was sobbing hysterically. (Was he _really_ that ugly?)

The next thing Crowley noticed was the smell. Blood—and a lot of it. Fresh.

He looked around behind him, half expecting to see some gutted animal hanging from the ceiling of this awful _barn_ they’d summoned him into.

However, his eyes fell on a slit-throat corpse laying on the floor to his left. A small corpse. A little, dark-skinned corpse in a pink dress.

“Is that a fucking child?” Crowley asked, gagging as he jerked away. He couldn’t move but a few centimeters further, trapped by the confines of the seal.

“We offer you this virgin sacrifice and now you will do our bidding!” Shouted the man. 

“Did you kill this kid?” He asked, unable to take his eyes off the poor thing. Her eyes were open, gaping at nothing. Just dark brown spheres staring off into the void while her mother screamed beside her.

“We demand riches! And strong familiars! We demand that you make our coven the most powerful in all the land!”

“I don’t take orders from monsters!” Crowley screamed, lunging to his feet and bearing his wings—letting his fangs show, letting his tongue thin, letting scales start to strip away his skin.

The blond woman began to sob and tried to run away, only to be grabbed by the sandy-haired rugby player. 

“The witch’s daughter is a worthy offering! Now bow before your new master!”

“Demons don’t take masters!” Crowley roared, tasting the sweat and fear on the air—underneath that overwhelming, coppery blood.

“The offering isn’t enough,” the scrawny man said, hiding behind the ringleader. 

“Not enough? A demon’s bloodlust can never be slaked. But we can try,” the man growled, suddenly lunging for the dark-skinned woman he deemed a witch. 

Her screams grew louder and she fought against the man who drew a blade and held it to her throat.

“Demon Crawley, hear my demands, this flesh and blood of worthy female in exchange for riches and power unopposed!”

A silly, futile incantation that he may have abided just to escape the seal in exchange for wine or scotch. 

The woman’s blood sprayed across Crowley’s face as he neck was cut and her body thrust forward to fall atop her daughter’s. 

“I will never help you,” Crowley seethed, backing against the water-like wall of his seal. 

“Looks like he’s playing hard to get,” the rugby player said. 

“It’s alright. We’re prepared for that. Hand me that bullwhip.” The ringleader gestured to his left and the scrawny man retrieved the worn instrument from a dimly illuminated bale of straw. 

“Mortal torture methods will not work on me!” Crowley shrieked, channeling rage to hide his pain. How had this man murdered a child in hopes of summoning him? How many more would do the same? How many had tried already and just failed to make a summoning circle that even Satan could faintly recognize?

“Your seal has been enhanced with special runes to block your travel and your healing! You shall be trapped in your vessel within our seal until we see fit to release you. I give you one last chance to submit to your masters, or you will face punishment!”

“Step close enough to strike and I will rip you in two,” Crowley hissed. If only the threat weren’t empty. If only the man were daunted. 

The man stepped several paces closer then sneered as he tossed back the whip.

“Last chance, demon.”

“Go to hell,” Crowley hissed. 

His serpent drawl faded into the sound the whip slicing through the air before cut through the seal as though it were invisible and slashed across Crowley’s shoulder and chest. The pain exploded through him, dropping Crowley to his knees as another hiss of leather crashed across his back and wings. He quickly tried to tuck his feathers away, but found himself unable. 

“Grab his wings! Reach in there and grab one! Both of you!” The ringleader shouted.

“Reach in here and lose your hands!” Crowley hissed, baring his fangs as the rugby player neared him. “Ssstay back! I will rip you limb from limb!” The whip crashed across his face—tearing his cheek and his neck. Crowley’s hands reflexively shot up to protect his eyes. In that moment, the rugby player and his scrawny sidekick each took hold of one of his wings.

He started to thrash them and lowered his hands to grab the fragile human wrists near his shoulders—but once he moved his arms, the whip was hurtling toward him again and he had to shield his eyes. His wings were forced outward—being pulled through the glow of the seal by the humans who controlled it. It was as if they were being burnt, the outside air hurt so badly. His feathers felt as if they were being singed with holy flames and all Crowley could do was scream and roar his inhuman roar.

“Hold him steady. This’ll only take a moment. Angel, hand me those shears.”

“Angel?” Crowley whispered, turning his head to look past his forcefully extended wings. Somehow, he expected to see Aziraphale—a strange hope flickering through his pain and disorientation—but it was the blond woman he commanded.

“Rodger, no,” the girl said, shaking her head.

“Are you deaf? Do as he says!” The rugby player screamed. “Or I’ll just break this fucking thing,” he added, tightening his grip on Crowley’s wing until the demon let out a hiss. 

“What do you want from me?” Crowley rasped as he tested his wings again, barely able to move them a centimeter. The wall of the seal were acting the part of handcuffs as well as a prison cell as far as they were concerned. 

“It’s too late for that now, Demon! Way too late for that,” the ringleader, Rodger said, tossing aside the whip in favor of retrieving the shears himself. Angel, the blond, tried to stop him, but he smacked her and grabbed them anyway. “Now you just hold still and this’ll all be over in moment. Then maybe if you apologize real nice, we can move on.”

The next thing Crowley knew, the blade of the shears was being run along the bow of his wing—taunting him. Blood was running down into one of his eyes, forcing Crowley to keep it shut against the sting. His skin felt as if it were burning wherever the whip had cut. How long had it been since he’d suffered under the lash? Not since the Roman days, he was sure. And even then he’d had control. He just wanted to try his hand at tempting a slave to murder his master—and to do that, you had to play the part of a slave down to the lashings. 

The loud sound of the blade clicking a few times drew Crowley back from his thoughts. Would they try to cut his wings off with garden shears? It wouldn’t work… Not easily, anyway. And without his ability to heal, who knew how long he would suffer inside the seal before he could grow them back.

He felt Rodger’s fingers comb through his long, black primaries. Then felt the blade follow suit. 

So that was how it was going to be…

Crowley tensed as he heard the blade start to crunch through his feathers, squeezing his eyes shut against the bolts of pain cutting through the unending burn of his wings outside the seal. He felt every feather snap, felt them slide free and fall to the ground. First his right wing, then his left, until he was finally able to pull them back into the seal and wrap them around himself. He couldn’t even bring himself to touch them—too focused on the gaps in his plumage where his primaries had been cut away in awful, jagged chunks. 

“You’re ours now, Demon,” Rodger hissed, somewhere outside Crowley’s curtain of feathers. “Now… Riches!”

“What currency?” Crowley asked, surprised when his response was a fresh slash of the whip down the middle of his back. He screamed and lurched forward. Humans… There were no greater monsters on Earth than humans.

“What currency, _Master!”_ Rodger screamed.

Crowley suffered another, unwarranted lash across his spine before he could even try to answer.

“What currency do you desire, Master?” Crowley asked, shivering behind the curtain of his wings.

“Bars of gold. As much as you’ve got.”

“As you like, Master.” Crowley took in a shaking breath and reached out of his feathered shield just long enough to snap his fingers, summoning a pile of golden bricks at the monster’s feet. “May I have an offering now, Master?”

“He’s fuckin’ greedy!” The rugby player shouted.

“What do you want, Demon?”

“Wine… Scotch… A cigarette. Anything you have. It’s in the demon’s contract. For every reward, a fitting offering. I don’t care for blood. I don’t want children.” Crowley was still shuddering—may it be from pain or disgust or fear, he didn’t know. 

“Wine?” Rodger asked.

“We have some… We have some back at the house,” Angel said, her voice trembling. “I’ll go get it.”

“Go with her,” Rodger said, pointing to the rugby player. “I don’t trust that one...”

Crowley stayed put on the ground, hidden behind his clipped wings, shivering until the wine arrived. A bottle was offered slowly by the woman’s hand and he had half the mind to bite her—drag her inside with him and tear her apart—but he didn’t. 

He needed her. Yes, he would use her to be free. Crowley decided this as he looked up at her—forcing his right eye open despite the sting of the blood running into it. He fixed on her the saddest, most pitiable expression he could, then let his head hang low as he accepted the bottle and snapped his fingers to open it.

It didn’t taste the same straight out of the bottle, but Crowley wasn’t going to miracle for a chalice. He would keep his displays of power to a minimum while he made up fake rules and fake limitations to his abilities. 

“So… An offering for every reward, is it?” Rodger asked while Crowley drank his wine.

“Yes, Master. It is the condition of a demon to take offerings. We cannot perform without offerings. We would be summoned back to Hell for disobeying Lord Satan’s whims.”

“Are all offerings equal? Answer wisely,” the man asked, flourishing his whip. 

“Yes, Master. All are equal. Wine, a heart, a vessel. All are equal payment for any reward asked for those who summon a demon.” He played meek. He shuffled himself away when the man drew close. 

He didn’t fear the whip, but he certainly didn’t want another taste of it if he could avoid it. 

“And you’d like a heart, then? Maybe one of theirs?” He asked, stomping his boot down onto the corpses laid next to Crowley’s seal. 

“I’d really just like more wine. And a good scotch. I’m a demon of temptations, Masssster. Not bloodshed.” 

Rodger hummed pensively, then began pacing circles around the seal while Crowley quietly drank—sizing him up. Crowley watched his footsteps when they passed in front of him through the shield of his clipped feathers.

No protection seal anywhere on the ground, Crowley noted. He guessed it was impossible for humans to get _everything_ right.


	2. Chapter 2

The humans retired back to the farmhouse just after sunrise, leaving Crowley behind, trapped in his seal. His back had been whipped bloody, his shirt and jacket hanging in tattered ribbons. His wings had suffered substantial damage and despite his best efforts, he was unable to retract them. So many feathers lay scattered around him on the floor of the barn… The humans, for whatever ill-informed reason, collected some of the feathers along with the gold bars—claiming they’d be used to make potions back at the house.

Demon feathers were about as useful in potion-making as a mallard duck’s.

For his magic, Crowley had been given another bottle of wine, a silver necklace, and the heart of the thirteen-year-old girl who had been murdered to complete his summoning. Rodger, for whatever reason, had it in his mind that demons needed to ingest the heart of their human offerings and had put the scrawny kid, Thomas, in charge of making sure that happened. Davey, the rugby player, had taken great pride in cutting out the heart—he seemed to take great pride in a lot of vile, cruel deeds—and then slapped the organ into Thomas’ hand. 

During this exchange, Crowley had his back to them, fantasizing about what he’d do to them that would make slitting the throat of that tiny, beautiful child and desecrating her corpse look like mercy. Angel was on her knees at the doorway of the barn, heaving her guts out and sobbing. She was clearly disturbed and in over her head, but she didn’t call for the police. She didn’t do anything to help make this nightmare end, and Crowley couldn’t forgive her for that.

Once the heart was out and in Thomas’ hand, Rodger reached through the blue glow of the seal’s wall in order to fist his hand in Crowley’s hair. It came on so suddenly that Crowley barely had a chance to fight against it. He had scratched the man only once before Rodger had gotten his hand and the top of Crowley’s head out of the seal—locking him in place again as if the glowing forcefield had suddenly decided to become solid concrete. 

Unable to move his head, Crowley was left to snarl and scream as Davey forced Thomas into reaching into the seal in order to shove the heart against his face. By the end of it, Thomas was screaming and the only thing bitten into was his bony wrist. 

That was when the whipping had started up again. Crowley took it, for the most part, quietly. His flesh had begun to feel raw and his wings no doubt had fractured under the weight and pull of the bullwhip. In the end, Rodger must have tired out because the lashing stopped and they walked away without forcing the heart into his throat. 

Once they were gone, Crowley was able to push the bloodied, tattered organ out of the circle using the empty wine bottle, but the smears of blood left behind still taunted him. 

He had to find a way out of this mess. Soon.

Without being able to heal, his body was losing a significant amount of blood and the pain was leaving him all kinds of disoriented. For a moment, as the morning light filtered in through the slats in the barn’s walls, as the flies and scavengers began picking at the bodies behind him, Crowley forgot where he was. Sunlight and heat...that was what he remembered before he’d placed his hand on his angel’s knee.

What a perfect, simple moment. Heaven was a real, true place—but for him, that moment in the bookshop, Aziraphale’s gentle voice reading to him and him alone, that was heaven. That was paradise. So much better than sterile, white walls and vast amounts of empty space. 

It was so far away and yet still so close he could taste it. 

Crowley closed his eyes as his serpent’s tongue tasted the air. Blood, rot, straw… Dust.

The bookshop had always tasted of paper and dust—a stale but pleasant flavor. Aziraphale’s flavor. Crowley almost wanted to call for his angel to come perform a daring rescue. Part of him doubted the angel would hear him if he tried, and another part was ashamed to let Aziraphale see him in such a state. The very last thing he wanted was the angel looking down on him in pity, thinking he couldn’t manage this inconvenience by himself.

He tried to find a way to get comfortable in the seal as afternoon came and the humans had yet to return. He couldn’t lay down for his wings were in the way, and he couldn’t lean back against the walls of the seal as it burnt against his open wounds. He was forced to sit, or kneel with his forehead pressed to the dirt like a devotee in prayer.

In the end, that was how Angel found him around three in the afternoon. All hunched over on himself, sniffling out sad, pitiable little noises that might’ve been sobs. Whatever he needed, really, to get the job done. 

“Oh, you poor thing,” the woman gasped, sinking down to her knees outside the seal. She pushed a little saucer and teacup into his seal, and then a bowl of oats with sliced fruit. Her hands shook horribly and Crowley could smell her fear. She made sure her fingertips never so much as grazed the shimmering walls of the summoning seal, meaning she’d taken heed after seeing what had happened to Thomas. “Are you alright, Demon?”

“Crawley,” he whispered to her, slowly lifting his head. He wasn’t about to bother giving them his real name. He let her take a long look at his pitiful, sad face—still smeared with blood from his lashings and the heart. “You can just call me Crawley.”

She looked at him so sadly, like he was a dog in the shelter about to be put down.

“Are you alright, Crawley? Can I get you anything else?”

“I want to be clean,” he whimpered before picking up his teacup. It was Earl Grey, one of Aziraphale’s least favorites. Somehow, Crowley found it comforting. 

“I could bring you a wet cloth if you’d like. Rodger… Rodger and Davey are still asleep. I could do that for you...”

“What would you like in return, Master?” He asked her, making sure his hand which held the teacup trembled. 

“N-No. No, I’m not the master. I’m not your master,” she said, looking down at the ground and shaking her head rapidly. “I could just get it for you. Not for an offering. Just… Just to help you.”

“Help Crawley?” He asked, returning the teacup to its saucer and fixing her with another sad stare. He worked his charms, as best he could. Open, fearful, big, sad eyes. Lips, bloodied and chapped—chapped? Ah, yes, chapped—parted and trembling just a little.

“To get clean. I’ll go get you a cloth.” She got to her feet, then paused just as she reached the doorway of the barn in order to look back at him—as if she were afraid he might go somewhere. 

He stared after her with his head tilted to one side like a lovable, beaten dog. It worked on her. She liked dogs—certainly a lot more than she liked people. 

When she returned, she had a soapy bucket of cold water and several cleaning rags. She handed him the first rag, soaked and full of suds, and watched as he wiped off his mouth and face. The rag felt good against the cut in his cheek and shoulder—soothing away some of the burn left from the whip, but only so long as the rag was touching him. Once his face and neck were clean, he set the rag on the ground and pushed it through the seal back to her side. 

Angel stared at it a moment, then looked him in his eyes and bit her lip. She was terrified of him (as she should be) but she pitied him. She wanted to soothe him and knew it was in her best interest to treat him with kindness. He could read all of these things as they flickered through her green eyes, though he was smart not to look for too long—and clever to let her catch on that he was so nervous of her noticing him looking.

“May I wash your back, Crawley? It has to hurt...” As soon as the words were out, she bit her lips again. The bottom one was dry and cracked, threatening to bleed if she gave it much more trouble. 

Crowley ran through his options quickly. He could refuse and struggle to do it himself, or he could strip off his shirt and allow her the privilege. She would have to reach into the seal then and he could attack her. He could turn serpent and wrap her up, keep her hostage unless Rodger agreed to let him out. He could, alternatively, show her kindness and keep up this little game a while longer—win her favor in hopes she let him out.

“Crawley?”

“Master?” He asked her, making sure to flinch as he did—as if he were afraid she would beat him. 

“I asked if you could take off your shirt.”

“Oh… Oh, yes, Master,” Crowley said before doing as she asked, cringing and hissing genuinely as his muscles and torn flesh screamed in protest. It was truly a difficult task with his wings in the way and he had to discreetly miracle the fabric to make it rip and give way how he wanted it to.

Once his shirt was off, she asked him to turn so she could reach him, not willing to stand too close to the mutilated bodies. Crowley didn’t particularly care to stare at them either, so he closed his eyes while she gently dabbed and wiped at the lash marks on his back. She whispered little apologies to him the whole time and Crowley merely whined at her in response. He had the bowl of oats sitting between his crossed ankles, untouched, and the teacup in his hands warming him. In his head, he was picturing Rodger in an array of torture scenarios. Flaying. Vivisection. Castration. Crushing. Being swallowed whole by a twenty-foot serpent…

“What the hell is this!?” 

Oh shit.

“I was just cleaning him up! Honest, Rodger! I was just trying to clean him up! I-It says in all the books she showed us, we have to show his respect! I-I just wanted to make sure he was—”

Before Crowley could turn around, Angel had been slapped. Rodger had her on her knees, one hand fisted in her blond locks while his other delivered blow after blow to her right cheek until her words became nothing both desperate sobs. 

“I told you not to come out here without me! I know what you’re up to! Trying to get him to obey you! Demons don’t obey women, you stupid cow! Demons obey their masters, not pathetic little cunts!” On and on he beat her—growing more violent by the second. Her blouse had been ripped all the way from the neck to its bottom seam, revealing her pink bra and bruised chest. “Get in the house and make yourself decent!”

While Angel was running back to the house, Rodger was picking up the bucket of water which he was fast to dump on Crowley’s head—ruining the cup of tea and the bowl of oats he wasn’t going to eat regardless. 

“What did you say to her, Demon? Answer wisely or I’ll tear the rest of your feathers out.” He would do it, too. Crowley had no doubt.

“I thanked her, Master. For bringing me food and drink...and for washing me. I thought Master had sent her to me...an offering for rewards.”

“You thought Angel was your offering?” Rodger sneered. He was walking towards his bullwhip and Crowley could almost growl he was so sick of it. He really had had just about enough of this place. 

“Did you not send her Master?”

“I’ll let you think on that one, Demon. I’ll let you think real hard,” he said, flourishing the whip and then cracking it in the air. Crowley flinched on reflex, then made himself cast his eyes down toward the ground submissively. It wouldn’t do to get whipped again. Eventually his body would lose too much blood and he’d discorporate. And he highly doubted Satan would leap at the opportunity to file all the paperwork to give him a new body to have him continue this summoning game.

“I’m sorry, Master. I-I did… I did enjoy the tea. I-I won’t get sick now, Master. Now that she’s cleaned me. If I get sick, I can’t perform magic. I can’t—”

Nope, he’d overdone it.

The whip caught him across the cheek, hard like a punch, and tore down his chest in a blazing slice of pure agony.

His eyes watered of their own accord and Crowley hated to admit that the man had gotten him to be silently crying from a single, unexpected blow to the face.

“Now you tell me what happened or you get another.”

“I told you. She brought me tea and breakfast and washed me. I thought you sent her. I did not ask. It’s not my job to question. I receive offerings, I give rewards. That is all, Master.” His statement was punctuated with a shameful sniff as he willed back the water in his eyes. 

Rodger put away the whip after a few more moments of intimidation, then disappeared back into the house. He was gone for several hours and the next people Crowley saw were Davey and Thomas who ignored him (as best they could) while they collected the bodies and severed heart to be buried somewhere on the property. Angel came by shortly after and kept her head down as she collected the now shattered teacup and bowl of watered-down oats. 

“Are you hurt?” Crowley asked her, keeping up the sad, pitiful voice he used when addressing her.

“I’m fine, Demon,” she said, while arranging the shards of teacup in her hand. The broken porcelain seemed to sadden her and Crowley saw in it an opportunity.

He shuffled toward her, his posture very much like a frog in the cramped space of the summoning circle, and snapped his fingers. In the time it took Angel to gasp, the cup was back in one piece. 

“Oh, my God!” She gasped, a smile taking over her lips. She finally looked him in the eye then—starting to cry. “Thank you! This was our mother’s!”

“Your mother’s?”

“Yes,” Angel said, looking down at the cup again. What a very precious item for her to have used to serve a demon tea. Her actions that morning hadn’t been ones of generosity or concern. She wanted something too. Excellent.

“A reward is made in exchange for an offering,” Crowley whispered to her. She flinched then, and almost dropped the cup. “Thank you for helping me. Let’s not let him catch us next time.”

Angel looked at him very closely, then gave minuscule nod.

“Best you get back inside then,” Crowley added, hunkering down in his circle as close as he could get to laying down. 

He was alone again until nightfall when Rodger came back and was enraged to find his bullwhip missing. (It had, suddenly of its own volition, decided it was better suited to leave the barn and appear in a Soho bookshop. Hopefully at the feet of an angel who had been left on his own to his reading for far too long.) Crowley, having thought he’d been clever and that the man would try something else besides physical intimidation, ended up staring at a heavy, doubled over chain used in towing vehicles. If he were smart, he probably would’ve snapped the bullwhip back to the barn—but he was frozen instead. 

He couldn’t escape. He couldn’t back away or shield himself. He _could_ beg, but he wouldn’t. He refused. 

He tried, anyway.

Rodger swung the chain down on him with the wrath of God. The first blow caught him by the shoulder—shattering it instantly. When he slumped over, clutching it through his wail of pain, the chain with withdrawn and swung down again. This time, is smashed his left wing. It snagged and pulled so many feathers as Rodger yanked it back. The next blow fell on his right shoulder, not hard enough to break his bones but enough to knock him over. Then another on his leg, then another across his wings until he was left kneeling in a position of submission. 

“Please! Please, Master! S-Stop! Wh-What do you want from me? Re-Rewards will be given! Just ask!” It was hard to speak—his chest felt as if were full of shattered bone. His wings were both pulverized. “Please, Master!” 

“You won’t be playing with my things anymore, will ya?”

“No, Master,” Crowley whined, hearing the chuckle of the rugby player somewhere behind him. 

“Bring us good familiars, so that this shall be the strongest coven in the world.”

“Wh-Which familiars do you seek, Master? O-Or… Or how sh-should they present themselves?” Crowley asked, not even sure how he was supposed to pull this one off. He couldn’t command familiars. He left that up to the professionals—demons who specialized in being worshiped and called upon. Typically those happy to impersonate Lucifer himself in order to get mortals to kill their families or, half the time, themselves. 

“Summon them!” Rodger screamed, bringing down the chain again.

As the explosions of pain lit up behind Crowley’s eyes, he noticed a grim figure in the corner by the hay bales. He thought, at first, it might be Aziraphale. Then, as the flickering behind his eyes dimmed away, he realized it was Hastur sneering at him in the darkness. Crowley was frozen in place, watching as Hastur gave a little wave in his direction.

“Enjoying your rectification?” He asked, in a voice that spoke directly into Crowley’s head so the humans would not hear.

Crowley was still thinking of a response to him—struggling to come up with anything witty as his mind kept crackling in and out between the waves of pain—when the chain came down a final time across both his wings at once, harder than any time before.

Not thinking, he just began snapping his fingers, calling on any small animal he could think of. Aziraphale’s white rabbit he used for his magic tricks. His white dove. A black swan from the park. A small, little scruffy dog that was a sad mockery of a Hellhound. 

Poor dog, Crowley would’ve thought if could think of much else besides the pain coursing through him like a wildfire. He was unaware that he was whimpering, unaware that it was both tears and blood running down his face. 

“You call this a familiar!?” Davey asked, kicking his foot toward Dog who was staring fixedly at Hastur, his hackles raised—though whether out of rage or excitement, no one could tell. What Crowley did know, was Davey’s second kick landed square in the dog’s ribs (Crowley really, really had not meant to summon Dog, _the_ dog) which set the beast into motion.

In an instant, the Hellhound was back at its full height—taller than any Great Dane or similar should ever be. His teeth morphed into fangs and his bark sounded almost like the roar of a tiger. Rodger thought it would be smart to turn his chain on the Hellhound, but as if sensing his intentions, the dog whipped around to stare at him through dark, slit eyes—baring all of his fangs as he prepared to lunge.

Hastur, at that moment recognizing the dog, was fast to disappear someplace else. Rodger backed away while holding the chain as some sort of thin, heavy shield in front of him. Davey made the mistake of trying to run for it, only to have the Hellhound reach him in two half-hearted bounds. He reared up, his feet slamming into Davey’s shoulder blades and knocking him to the ground. Davey only screamed a little while as Rodger stopped and started his attempted interference. 

“Stop him! Please! Please, stop him!” Angel was screaming. 

Crowley hadn’t realized she was in the room...the barn… Where was he?

He watched through hazy eyes as Dog bit into Davey’s throat and shook his head—effectively silencing the Rugby player’s screams for all eternity. Meanwhile, the rabbit had hopped off, the dove had flown up to the rafters to escape the chaos, and the swan was nesting in a bale of hay.

Looked soft, it did. The hay. 

Crowley snapped his fingers twice—once to return Dog to his tinier, Antichrist approved shape, and a second time to send him home to the boy. _Sorry, Adam,_ Crowley thought mostly to himself, doubtful he could be heard outside his seal. _My mistake. Wrong dog. Well, right dog, but...bad idea. Bad idea, indeed. So sorry._

Everyone was kneeling around Davey’s mutilated body, wailing or crying while Crowley collapsed in on himself. How was he supposed to fix this now? Rodger wasn’t going to show him any leniency now that one of the “familiars” had slaughtered Davey. He was probably going to grab that chain and crush Crowley’s skull.

He was about to be discorporated and Aziraphale was never going to know where he went or what had happened to him. He would die out here, alone and in agony—to torture of all things. He’d never really tortured anyone in his entire existence. Sure, some of his killing methods were a bit extreme, but the death part came pretty quickly. 

“Oh, Davey, you fucking idiot! You damned fool!” Rodger was crying, his head resting on the man’s bloody chest. On and on he crooned while Angel screamed and sobbed over the death of her...friend? Brother? Who were these people?

Crowley’s head hurt too badly for him to concentrate. All he knew was they seemed to be blaming Davey for disrespecting his familiar and for the moment had forgotten about their pet demon. Crowley let his eyes slip closed but didn’t dare attempt to sleep. He was almost certain if he let go of his body for just a moment, he wouldn’t have one anymore. 

But he could close off one of his senses, throttle the flow of information going into his brain to stave off his headache. For Someone’s sake...he could feel how weak his body was becoming. 

He listened silently to them drag Davey’s body away. He felt the sun rise and set, rise and set. The swan had waddled away out the barn—the rabbit was gone and so was the dove. 

Crowley was almost certain they were all about to leave him to die, finally realizing the extent of his power after he’d brought a Hellhound into the mix. 

Then, when it was still dark, he heard a tiny voice behind him.

“Crawley?” Angel, her voice warbling like a little bird.

“Masssster?” He hissed, mostly from being half-asleep. 

“Crawley, I… I come with offerings.”

“Rodger will see you gone. We mustn’t meet now.”

“Rodger’s asleep. He won’t be waking up for a while. Here—let me help you.” Angel knelt before his seal with a bottle of wine and two glasses, a candle, a blanket, and a little plastic container full of food. She reached through the glowing walls to push him upright, then flourished the blanket in order to drape it over him even though he wasn’t cold. 

Angel lit the candle, then opened and scooted the container of food into his circle. It was a quarter of a meat pie he had no interest in, but it smelled nice and looked at least somewhat appetizing in the oh so romantic candlelight. 

She opened the bottle of wine and poured him a large glass and a very small one for herself. Crowley accepted it as she offered it to him, his hand shaking from pain as he moved. It was excruciating to rotate his shoulder enough to bring the glass to his lips, but he was desperate enough for alcohol that he kept it up.

“Crawley… I want to leave this place.”

“Why? It’s so charming,” Crowley hissed around the rim of his glass.

“Rodger is a cruel man. He rules this coven with fear. He’s going to make Thomas hurt your tomorrow. I don’t want to see you get hurt again. You don’t deserve it. You’ve been nothing but obedient, even without all of that,” she said, gesturing to his body. “You’re like me. You do what you’re asked and you still get beat for it.” She sniffled then and took a sip from her glass. 

“I’m afraid...I can’t help you in this state. I can’t heal and I have no energy left. I want to. I _like_ you. Angel, I _like_ you _very much,”_ he said with a distinct little hiss that got her eyes to light up. “I brought the dog for you. I thought, ‘Angel likes dogs. Angel needs a familiar that can protect her from all evil.’ But that awful boy messed everything up.”

“Yes. He always does that… Messes things up.” She had tears running down her face now and wiped them away as if ashamed. A tiny, choked laugh escaped her lips as she stared down into her wineglass. “You probably think I’m pathetic.”

“We all need help sometimes. I could help you, Angel. I could give you...a very great reward if you...helped me.”

“But how do I know I can trust you?” She asked, looking him in the eye with equal parts fear and hope. She was reckless—no! _Desperate._ She was _desperate_ enough to free him whether it cost her her life or not.

“I would need a very great offering to spare you…” Crowley said, because saying he wouldn’t would be, to her, the same as saying he would. It was all a game, a ritual of give and take. Nothing was free, especially not the sympathies of a demon.

She licked her lips nervously and stared at the wall, the flickering candle casting odd shadows around her face. 

“Do you want… Wh-What do you want? What would be enough?” She asked instead, glancing at him but suddenly too afraid to make eye-contact.

“My freedom for your freedom. And in exchange for mercifully sparing your life once I am free, I would like...you. Yes, Angel. I want you. I will take you with me.”

“Where?” She asked.

“Wherever you would like to go. Will you come with me? If I kill them both, will you come with me?”

“You can’t kill Thomas. He’s my brother!” Angel said, very suddenly and with a violent shake of her head.

“Oh,” Crowley said, thinking back to see if he’d missed some connection somewhere. It was hard to keep details straight with a bullwhip slicing you open, so he could forgive himself for missing that tidbit. “Yes. For that, I will need another offering, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t think I have anything else to give you,” she said, taking a long drink of her wine and finishing off her small glass. 

Crowley did the same with his and scooted his glass forward toward the shimmering glow of his prison. Angel took the glass and refilled it for him, then slid it back.

“Just you then,” Crowley said after gulping down that glass and letting out a pleased sigh. “I guess I can settle for just having you by my side.”

Angel stared at him, searching his face for signs of deception. All she could see was a very wounded, very sore and sad demon staring back at her with the smallest of hopeful grins on his lips. 

“How do I get you out?” She asked.

“Simple. Break the seal. Damage it. Smear it. Paint over it. I can’t. Nothing I do will effect it. But you, Angel… You can do anything.” He tried not to look too excited as Angel stood up and began looking around her at the barn.

“I think… I think there’s paint somewhere. The witch, she’d used it to paint your seal.”

“She must be a good witch,” Crowley said, getting shakily to his feet—having to balance all of his weight on one leg as the chain had rendered the other useless. “I have been summoned many times this past year and only she has made a seal impenetrable.” While Angel was spinning around, looking for a paint behind the hay bales, Crowley discretely snapped his fingers and summoned an open, leaking can of white paint to an area of the barn near the doors. “Is that it over there?” He asked.

The same time he had miracled the arrival of the paint, he had sent the left over meat pie he’d been given to Aziraphale. He doubted the angel would eat it, but it was humorous to imagine what his reaction might be to finding half a meat pie in his reading chair.

“Oh! Yes. I’m so stupid. I didn’t even see it.” Angel ran over to the tin and picked it up, passing a worried glance toward the farm house. Once she made certain no one was about to come outside, she hurried back to the seal and was prying off the lid of the paint can. “Okay… So—So I can just spill it on there and it’ll take away the seal?” She asked, hesitating and looking Crowley over. Somewhere in her brain, she realized this was a very bad idea—but so was staying put and letting Rodger do as he pleased to her and her brother in this lame excuse for a coven. 

“Please, Massster,” Crowley hissed, thinking about how much pain he was in and how long it had been since he’d seen Aziraphale—all sorts of sad, awful things really—to make it easier to summon tears to his eyes. “Please. I’m hurt…”

“Okay… Okay,” Angel chanted, her chest heaving as she tossed the lid of the paint tin aside and dumped the white liquid all over the perimeter of the seal which faced her. Immediately, Crowley felt the oppressive air of the summoning circle leave him—tension fleeing from his muscles as he was able to will the bones in his body back to their proper place. He set his foot down and sighed in relief, even as Angel was now on the ground in front of him, smearing the paint with her hands as if she thought the entire seal needed to be covered in order to save him. 

He let her have at it, stepping out of her way while deciding which injuries to heal and which ones to leave so he remained in a state of being she pitied. 

“I think—I think that does it. Are you alright?” She asked, staring up at him, still breathing heavily. 

“Yesss,” Crowley hissed, stepping away from the seal and sauntering a little around the open space of the barn. It felt good to stretch his legs after so long, even if his wings hung uselessly in tatters behind him. They hurt, badly, and it was slowing him down—but he had an answer to that. “Tell me, Angel… Can you show me where he sleepsss? We’ll end thiss tonight.”

Angel looked at him, slowly getting back onto her feet, and nodded. Her large green eyes were filled with fear and determination in equal parts. Had she been the one to summon him, had she been the one calling the shots all along instead of Rodger (and assuming she hadn’t given the order to kill an innocent woman and child and cut out one of their hearts), Crowley wouldn’t have minded serving her for a while. It would’ve been interesting to see what she might do as leader of the world’s strongest coven.

“Yes, Crawley. Let’s go.”


	3. Chapter 3

Crowley transformed as they neared the farmhouse. It was easier to move quietly that way and it settled this issue of his aching, tattered wings. As he slid across the grass alongside her, Angel recounted the story of how Rodger’s little coven had formed.

He was a farmhand who helped work the land with Davey while Angel and Thomas took turns caring for their ailing mother in the farmhouse. The woman they’d killed was an immigrant named Kumbha who had come to the farm six months earlier looking for work. Angel had hired her, but it was Rodger who’d figured out that she practiced witchcraft. He befriended her, learned a little bit about magic, and convinced Angel and Thomas that with it, they could cure their mother. 

She died a month ago and Rodger had taken over the house in her absence. Angel was too meek to chase him off and Thomas was much the same. With Rodger, came Davey—lured in by the promises of wealth and power that dark witchcraft boasted. 

It had been the witch’s idea to summon Crowley, and Angel insisted that her hope was for Crowley to free them all from Rodger’s clutches. She hadn’t been aware that Rodger would hurt her daughter or that the child would even be a part of it until it was much too late. Rodger had read somewhere that demons—all of them—when summoned, required virgins and had sent Davey to the witch’s house to kidnap the child while her mother was carefully scrawling the sigil. 

She warned them, after she finished drawing the seal and her daughter had been led into the barn. She warned them all that demons wouldn’t respect them if shown hostility.

“She got that right,” Crowley hissed as he made his way up the porch steps at Angel’s feet. “Explainssss why a witch with her ssssskill didn’t make a ssseal of protection,” he added as he coiled himself up in the foyer while Angel held the screen door open for all six meters of his length. 

The witch, he assumed, had been going along with the plan up until she saw her daughter. A witch who could make a perfect sigil complete with enhancements to block his healing wouldn’t be caught dead (under normal circumstances) near a summoning circle without a protection seal for herself. She wanted Crowley to attack them. 

Her help was coming too late, but Crowley hoped it would still be worth it to her. Perhaps he could ask if they crossed paths in Hell. 

“Rodger’s room is up this way,” Angel said, pointing through a dark hallway toward a staircase. She moved silently, her footsteps those of someone trained to go unnoticed. She walked slowly, allowing Crowley’s head to stay a meter or two ahead of her as they ascended the stairs.

“Where issss Thomasss?” Crowley asked.

“In his room,” Angel whispered as they reached the top of the steps. She pointed toward a closed door on the right, then gestured for Crowley to move on down the hallway toward another closed door. “That’s my mother’s room. Rodger took over it...”

“Let me meet with Thomasss before I ssssettle thingss. Alright?” Crowley asked, bringing his head up to be level with hers. It was impossible to change his expression in this form—impossible to soften his gaze or make his yellow eyes less piercing. Still, whatever he was doing must’ve worked, for Angel nodded and quietly walked over to Thomas’ door and opened it with the gentlest of clicks.

Crowley slithered through the space between the door and the frame before Angel could even whisper out a word of greeting to her brother.

“What’s happening?” Thomas moaned sleepily, thrashing around in his blankets as Angel hastily shut the door. “What’s that?” He asked, a little louder as he noticed Crowley coiling up beside his bed.

“Shh! It’s okay! Everything is going to be okay! Crawley and I have an agreement.”

“Crawley? Th-The demon?” Thomas asked, switching on his bedside lamp. “Holy shit… Wh-What’s wrong with him?” 

“This is his natural form. He’s the serpent, remember what the web page said?” Angel said, her voice shaking. 

“Why did you let him out? He’s going to kill us!”

“Shh! Keep your voice down! He’s not going to hurt us. He promised.”

“He’s a demon! We-We have to wake Rodger.”

“No!” Angel barked. “Don’t you dare! I’m ending this! _We’re_ ending this now! Crawley is going to help. Please, just listen to him.”

“I’m going to kill Rodger for breaking my wingsss,” Crowley hissed, his eyes fixed on Thomas as he worked out his plan. “And then I will come back and give you your rewardss. His sssoul for an offering will earn you both the greatesssst of rewardsss.” 

Thomas looked to his sister, then back to Crowley nervously. Angel nodded at him, urging for him to agree.

“Wh-What do you want us to do?”

“Be very sssilent. And whatever you hear, do not leave thisss room. Whatever you hear isss between me and Rodger and Ssssatan himssself.”

Thomas and Angel gave him a few brief nods of the head, then Angel opened the door just long enough for Crowley to slither back out into the hall. 

He made his way to Rodger’s door, opening it with a simple thought and pushing it open with his nose. On the inside, he was practically beaming, unable to stop flicking his tongue out in excitement and anticipation. 

He willed on the lamps which woke Rodger with a start, and lay coiled in the center of the room waiting to be noticed. 

Rodger flailed around under the blankets, dressed in only his underwear—heaving and panting as if he’d been woken from a nightmare. It took him a moment of scrubbing at his eyes with his fingertips and groaning before he sat up and realized there was a massive black and red snake lounging on the carpet. 

“Oh… Fuck. Who let you out?” He hissed, glaring at Crowley with instant recognition.

“Did you not want to ssssee me, Massster?” Crowley hissed, tasting the air and getting a delightful mouthful of fear. 

Rodger sniffed loudly and looked around the room, seeking a weapon. He didn’t have a bullwhip or thick chain here. 

“Isss Massster angry with Crawley?” He asked, slithering closer to the bed and watching delighted as Rodger wiggled backwards on the mattress. “Issss my masssster afraid of ssssnakesss?”

Rodger suddenly grabbed anything within reach, a pillow first, then a lamp, then a notebook on the nightstand, and chucked them toward the serpent. The lamp smashed against Crowley’s back, but he hardly felt it in this form. Any abrasions it made were quickly healed with the smallest of thoughts.

“You get away from me! I am your master! I command you!” All the while chucking things and flailing back against a wall. 

“Isss thisss form better for you, Rodger?” Crowley asked, standing unnaturally tall in his serpentine form before allowing his scales to morph back into skin while his fangs remained in a twisted, violent smile. 

“Stay away from me, so help me God!”

“Oh, so sorry. Haven’t you heard? Once you swear your soul to Satan, you don’t get to call on the power of God to vanquish demons.” Crowley snapped his fingers, miracling a bullwhip into his hand while Rodger was looking back and forth desperately for a weapon. “Looking for this? Sorry I stole it from you. Turns out demons don’t make very good servants, no matter how many hearts you force in their mouths.” 

Rodger scrambled out of the bed and made as if to attack, but before he could lunge, Crowley swung the whip and wrapped it several times around Rodger’s throat and yanked it until the man fell to his knees. 

“You see… Witches know to honor their demons. They give us good offerings… They give us respect and devotion. They know we can kill them any time we like. They know _we_ have all the power.” He yanked the whip and took a step backwards, forcing Rodger to crawl on his hands and knees like a dog. “Did you really think I would spend eternity trapped in that little seal? Worshiping you?”

Rodger was clawing at the whip and choking—forcing Crowley swirl the braided leather until it unwound from the man’s throat. He forgot a moment that humans needed to breathe.

“What fragile little bodies you have,” Crowley said, sliding the length of the whip through his palm. “I guess I could say the same about mine… Sadly, I don’t think my wings are going to heal as fast as my back and my face...” He still had a few of a marking burning on his skin, but he left them alone to remind himself not to show too much mercy (and because he still had work to do on Angel later and would be needing his wounds for her pity).

“Now, Demon—”

“My name is Crowley,” he hissed, bringing the whip down in a vicious crack against Rodger’s face and his chest—the same way it had been done to him. “And I don’t answer to you.” He brought the whip down again, circling the man at his feet a bit in order to cut him across his naked back.

Blood began to pour from his skin, tainting the air with thick, coppery pain that Crowley lapped at with his forked tongue. 

“I-I can explain!” Rodger choked out, so quick to go from demanding to begging.

“You can, can you? You can explain the severed heart of an innocent child?”

“It must be used in summoning!” Rodger called. 

“I had a nine-year-old summon me with a sigil the shape of an egg and a basket of snacks! A teenager summoned me with fruit juice! I don’t need a severed heart, you sick bastard!” Crowley brought the whip down again, tearing a new line through the man’s skin and a fresh scream from his throat. “Murderer!” With a thought, the whip turned into the same heavy, thick chain from the barn. He brought it down once on Rodger’s back as the man tried desperately to crawl away—leaving him flat on his belly, choking for air. “Oh… Not so tough now, are we?”

“I-I’m sorry! You must forgive me! I needed you!”

“Needed me?” Crowley hissed, walking in slow, measured circles around Rodger’s hunched and shaking form as his clipped and broken wings dragged uselessly on the ground behind him. Rodger, like most men desperate for power, was pathetic once the tables had turned. Once he had no weapons, no goons at his side, he was absolutely worthless. “Your tortured me. You beat me until I called you master…” Crowley hunched down to whisper close into Rodger’s ear. “You did this to yourself. And I—” he raised his voice to a shout, just to watch Rodger flinch and tremble like the plants in Crowley’s flat. “—will have no mercy! I will show no restraint! You will feel every bit of pain that I had to endure when I fell into your pathetic little seal. And you know what? You don’t have any wings, so I’m going to have to get very, very creative,” he growled, a sick and twisted and absolutely delightful idea filling his head. 

With two snaps of his fingers, he had Rodger bound face down on the bed and was poised behind him like a gargoyle minus his shattered wings. His skin was starting to scale over while twisted, rage-filled fantasies played out in his mind—his more demonic impulses taking control of him rapidly, welcomed like an old friend. 

“Let me go! I’ll give you anything you want!”

“Yes! Scream louder! Scream the roof down! I want the whole world to hear your fear!” Crowley howled, his mouth gaping with an unnaturally large sneer. As if to spite him, Rodger’s shouts turned to muffled noises of pain growled into the pillow beneath his head. 

That was fine, Crowley would be hearing his song again soon enough.

It had been a long time since Crowley had known what it meant to be a demon, if he ever really knew what it meant or felt like at all. But what he did know, in that very moment, was that the breaking of bone and tearing of flesh was a beautiful, pleasant song which he liked very much. His vision was tinged with red, his palms, his claws his wrists and forearms stained red—blood was on his face, his neck, and in his mouth, but he didn’t care. 

He was panting in joy, tasting the fear and blood on the air like a fiend—fueled by the images racing through his mind of that poor little girl, of that poor woman whose throat had been slit. That little girl… Killed to summon him. 

Hate and rage and pain—the curse of all demons. It plagued him until he’d snapped every rib in Rodger’s back, until he’d pulled every one of them out through the tears in his skin. Rodger was reeling in agony, pleading and sobbing while Crowley shrieked out inhuman noises—spoke languages that had been dead for thousands of years. 

When Angel interrupted him, so very rudely, nearly an hour after the ordeal had begun, Crowley had just finished pulling out Rodger’s lungs through his back.

“There,” he seethed in a language no one—not another single entity on Earth or anywhere—spoke. “Now your wings hurt too.” He was just about to rip into them, too, the little bloodied pillows, still filling weakly with air, when Angel let out her horrified scream. “I told you,” he screamed, in who knows what language, “not to enter this _room!”_

“I’m so sorry! I’m sorry!” She was shaking, almost falling to her knees as she backed out of the room, her hand to her mouth, and closed the door. 

It was too late, the damage already done. She had broken the spell, made him realize what he’d done—what had overcome him. He’d tortured plants since the 70s, but he’d never really tortured a man.

He wasn’t that kind of demon… Or so he’d thought.

But…

Crowley backed away from the soon-to-be corpse in front of him, trying to wipe the blood off his hands with his already bloodied palms in a moment of panic. He was suddenly all too aware of how badly his lash-marks stung, how much his broken wings ached, how his eye burned from his own blood dripping into it. 

He still had work to do…

He still…

Crowley crawled off the bed and pressed himself back against the wall—his wings giving an unpleasant crunch as he did that further grounded him in the moment. He stared at what he’d done to Rodger, watched the man’s lungs fill and empty of air a time or two more until they stilled completely from a torture method that had never existed outside of legend, no matter what the Vikings might want people to think, until that very moment. 

His plan was to murder Thomas and the girl for their parts in what had happened. He was going to make it quick—turn serpent, bite them, pump them full of venom. It’d be so fast, really… 

But suddenly, Crowley couldn’t move. He was sinking in on himself, his skin covered in black scales he couldn’t will away. His wings were burning—burning so, so badly. It was like Falling all over again.

He couldn’t get his hands clean. He tried and tried and tried but he couldn’t get the blood off his palms. He wiped it on his pants, tried to miracle it away—nothing worked. Crowley hadn’t realized it, but he’d started to whine. He was curled into himself in a very serpentine way, his spine bending ways it shouldn’t around his knees as he pressed into the wall. His eyes couldn’t leave the corpse he’d made. 

What would Aziraphale say?

Crowley covered his ears as if that would somehow block out the thought that had already been whispered into his head. He squeezed his eyes shut and hissed. Suddenly, he felt it all around him—the air rushing as if he were Falling.

He was Falling.

Oh, holy God, he was Falling again.

The experience was short-lived, and the next thing Crowley knew, he was slamming face down onto something so feather soft it couldn’t possibly exist in Hell. He felt soft cotton beneath his fingertips, clean and fresh and so soft. 

It did nothing to help the pain radiating through his wings or his lash-marks though.

Crowley opened his eyes to see shimmering blue. That awful, watery blue that meant nothing other than a summoning seal. He almost wanted to cry. Who wanted him now? Who did they kill to call on him?

“Crowley? Dear God… My dear? Are you alright?”

Crowley lifted his head and focused through the shimmering wall of the summoning seal. On the other side of it, almost indiscernible through a yellow, glittering wall of his own, was Aziraphale.

“Only you would make a seal of protection,” Crowley spat, trying to sit up only to cry out in pain and collapse again. 

He was on a bed—Aziraphale’s bed. It was quite nice, covered in a plush, gold and green duvet with far too many pillows, half of them with gold tassels. 

“Well, after how angry you were in Rome—”

“You called me out of—oh never mind! I wasn’t going to _hurt_ you! Just scare you a little.”

“Well, you scared me a lot!” Aziraphale said. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. My wings are broken. I couldn’t focus to fix them.” Crowley tried again to sit up, but found himself curling up instead—trying not to let it be too obvious that it was from pain. Aziraphale was still staring at him with what looked like panic. It was too hard to tell through all the glitter and shining lights of their respective enclosures. “Get out of that seal—I can barely hear you. What are you doing?”

Aziraphale let out a frustrated little huff and stepped out of his seal and into Crowley’s with his arms held stiffly at his sides.

“I’ll have you know I was _very_ concerned to have that awful bullwhip show up in my chair! It still had… It still had pieces of your skin on it.”

“Trust me, I didn’t mean to send _pieces of my skin_ with it. Kind of went with the territory. I promise it wasn’t my flesh in the meat pie I sent you.”

“I threw it away,” Aziraphale said, standing beside the bed now with a look of poorly-disguised pity. He had his arms held so stiffly at his sides because he was trying to keep himself from reaching out and immediately trying to heal him. Crowley just knew it. “What did they do to you?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking what I did to them?” Crowley asked, flourishing his hands—all the blood.

Aziraphale glared at him and snapped his fingers, getting rid of the blood so easily. Crowley didn’t expect it to make him feel so at ease.

“Whatever you did, I’m sure they deserved it,” Aziraphale said, nodding curtly. Crowley looked up at him, taking in that feigned stoicism. 

“They killed a little girl,” he said, his voice breaking as Aziraphale’s whole form seemed to slump in on itself before him. “Killed her! To summon me. Cut her heart out. They tried to make me eat it.” His voice broke with a sob and Crowley suddenly couldn’t bear to look Aziraphale in the eyes anymore. He stared down at his palms, seeing the blood that shouldn’t still be there. He started wiping his hands together, smearing the blood more and more until he fisted his hands in his hair and let out a low groan—pulling himself back together with each strand of hair he ripped.

“What heathens… God will be their judge. And I am certain they won’t enjoy their company in Hell.”

Crowley flinched as he felt hands fall on his shoulders. Aziraphale was stroking them gently, soothing him so easily—healing his lashes without even looking at them.

“You wings...can you heal them?”

“Yeah… It’ll just take a while,” Crowley whispered, realizing with a start that his skin had turned back into scales. He started scratching at them, even though he knew that wouldn’t work to make them go away, and when he tried to get a sharp inhale of a breath, he felt his tongue split into a fork.

“Crowley, it’s alright now. I-I made this seal… I made it so you can come and go. I tried to summon you earlier in the day, but you didn’t show. I don’t think you can be summoned if you’re already being called upon. So if we leave this seal here, you can’t be called again. They can’t touch you.” Aziraphale was trying to smile at him now and Crowley couldn’t take it. He shuffled away, trying to scratch off his scales and make it look casual.

“Yeah. G-Good idea. Solid plan. Why didn’t I think of that? Guess I couldn’t summon myself, right? Can’t make a seal of protection against myself.” He twisted in that unnatural way, turning his spine so his back and shattered wings were to Aziraphale even though he couldn’t get his legs to obey.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Sit still and I’ll heal you then,” Aziraphale said, ignoring Crowley’s outburst. He quickly had his hands running over Crowley’s shattered wings, causing Crowley’s vision to flicker in and out as pain rocketed through his entire form. “What on Earth did they do to you?” He asked, slowly pulling one of Crowley’s wings up and outward until it was fully extended.

Crowley couldn’t help the shuddering sigh of pain that escaped him. The bones were being crackled back into place as Aziraphale held them outstretched, but the agony which followed was dizzying. 

“They clipped them, Crowley...” He said it as if Crowley had no idea he’d been pinioned. 

“It’ll grow back,” Crowley answered, closing his eyes and focusing his energy in to join with Aziraphale’s in healing him. Slowly, painfully, bones regrew and new downy feathers started to fluff up over the fresh skin. 

First one wing, then the other. By the time it was over, Crowley was pleased it had been a bed Aziraphale had summoned him on, because he was exhausted and wanted sleep whether he needed it or not. 

“You see, it’s these symbols here I transposed,” Aziraphale was saying, gesturing to some markings on the floor that Crowley’s eyes were too crossed to interpret. “Doing that makes it illegitimate. You can come and go from the seal just as you were from all the others who summoned you without really knowing what they’re doing. I don’t intend to keep your prisoner like those awful monsters. I do hope you know that.”

“’Course I do, angel,” Crowley whispered, shuffling down into the blankets beneath him. 

“Well, I can tell you’re tired, so I’ll leave you to rest. Do you want any tea or something to eat before I—”

“No,” Crowley said, surprising himself with how forcefully he’d spoken. 

Aziraphale’s cheerful demeanor faltered and looked almost close to bleary in an instant. 

“Oh. Well, I shan’t—”

“Stay,” Crowley spat out, just as quickly and forcefully—trying to make it right but only serving to make a fool of himself as he always did. “I meant… I meant you don’t have to go.”

“Oh! Oh...” Aziraphale smiled that small, all-too-loving smile. A look with only a little more weight than that which he bestowed on servers bringing him the finest foods and wines. “Of course. I do believe...we left off reading last time you were here. Shall we pick up there?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Crowley said, because it would be too much for him to say ‘yes, please. That’s exactly what I want.’

Aziraphale was gone from the room maybe a quarter of an hour, and came back with the book and a tea tray. He poured them each a cup, then sat on the bed propped up with pillows. Crowley began propped up as well, though on his side, and sipped on warm herbal tea that soothed his throat. Aziraphale picked up right where he had left off in the book. Crowley faintly recognized the words he’d overheard while he’d been working up the courage to make contact with him. 

What if he touched him now, Crowley wondered. Now that he’d seen what Crowley was capable of—what was truly in his nature as a demon? Now that he had crash landed into Aziraphale’s bed, screaming in dead languages and coated in blood—would Aziraphale still want Crowley touching him?

Slowly, Crowley slid further and further down the pillows, until he was looking up at Aziraphale at only a slightly different angle from how he had been all those days ago on the couch in the shop. 

He wanted to try reaching out again, but lacked the courage. Whenever he looked at his hands, he either saw black scales or red blood—both of which would taint his angel with the smallest of touches. No… He could never touch Aziraphale now. Not after what he’d let himself become.

Crowley shut his eyes and listened to Aziraphale read, telling himself over and over that this was enough. Aziraphale had summoned him, saved him from spiraling further, and gave him the solution to all his problems. This had to be enough. He couldn’t risk ruining things now.

“Oh, my dear! You spilled your tea…” The words sounded so far away. “Crowley… Did you fall asleep?”

Distantly, he felt the cup he had forgotten taken out of his hand. 

“Poor old thing…”

He would leave now, Crowley thought. Aziraphale would clean up the tea and he would close the book and go someplace else. Someplace he could be alone and away from the monster he was forced to spend eternity with.

Except he wasn’t going. 

Crowley realized that he was being moved, covered with a blanket and then wrapped up underneath one of the angel’s warm arms. A moment later, the reading resumed and continued long past the time Crowley drifted off to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Crowley woke with a start, his body soaked in sweat that he thought, for a terrifying moment, was blood. He saw the glowing blue light around him and felt his breath choke off in his throat, felt the panic grip him. His body gave a vicious spasm as he tried to jerk himself into motion, anticipating an attack—looking back and forth in fear that Rodger was about to bring the lash down upon his wings again.

It took a moment for him to realize the whip wasn’t coming—that he wasn’t in the barn, he was in a bed. 

Aziraphale’s bed—all thick fabrics and gold tassels. 

He was safe.

Crowley felt his body start to shiver, even as he came down from panicking. His skin felt cold, far too cold, and he realized red scales had started taking over the undersides of his arms. He rubbed them gently, biting his lip while imagined skin—soft, smooth skin—instead of scales until he’d soothed the redness away.

He remembered now, being summoned by the angel—being held and read to and falling asleep.

But how long had he slept? Where was Aziraphale now?

Crowley opened his mouth to call for him, but then thought twice and clamped it shut. Aziraphale couldn’t see him like this. He had to get himself under control. He would wait until he was calm and then try out his luck with escaping the seal Aziraphale had made for him. 

Despite his best efforts, Crowley was still trembling slightly as he stepped through the blue glow of the summoning circle. He made his way out of the bedroom and tasted the air, still anxious that someone would be waiting around the corner to swing down a heavy chain upon his back. 

All he could taste was paper and dust—and Aziraphale’s cologne. He tried to compose himself and look causal as he went down the stairs and entered into the shop through a partially closed door at the bottom which read Employees Only once it was shut behind him. 

“Angel?” He called, looking around the shelves for the angel who was nowhere in sight. “Angel?” He called again, a little louder.

A cruel, vicious image of the blond woman being struck and dragged by Rodger flashed through his mind. Why, oh why, couldn’t she have been named anything else?

“Just a moment! Tea’s almost ready. Sit down on the couch, won’t you? I’ll be right there!” Aziraphale called, sounding relaxed albeit a tad distracted. 

Nothing unusual there. 

Crowley made his way to his usual spot on the couch and draped himself over it, sighing while he tried to wait. He couldn’t shake the nerves, even as he heard Aziraphale’s footsteps approaching. He tasted the air anxiously, ashamed to still be afraid it might be someone else approaching even though his attackers were dead. Well, most of them. Thomas had been spared and so had Angel, the unwitting accomplices though they were, and Crowley didn’t know how to feel about it.

“I was planning to come back upstairs. Serves me right, thinking you wouldn’t notice my absence. Did you sleep well?” 

Relief flooded Crowley’s stomach as the angel stepped into view, tea tray complete with a tiny vase and flower on it as if he’d been planning to woo the demon with breakfast in bed.

“More or less. How long was I asleep?”

“Oh, not too long. I finished the book we were reading and got a tad hungry… I came down to make myself something to eat and thought you might like some tea.” He set the tray down on the coffee table in front of the couch, then sat down beside Crowley who noticed, with a start, that the angel sat nearly close enough to touch. “Though… I didn’t think to ask if you might be—”

“Not hungry,” Crowley said quickly, bringing the teacup to his lips. Eating made him think of the heart Thomas had shoved into his mouth. Crowley was embarrassed of the shiver that ran down his spine.

Aziraphale fixed him with a gaze full of worry and concern. 

“Oh—Oh, my dear boy… I-I had forgotten. What you told me last night—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Crowley said quickly. “Never cared to eat before that place anyway. Not missing out.”

Aziraphale looked conflicted a moment, then grabbed a teacup for himself and took a slow sip. 

They sat in uncomfortable silence for far too long, Crowley wishing the tea he had to keep miracling warm was alcohol instead. Probably wasn’t the best idea to start getting drunk when his emotions were already so out of control, but it didn’t make the temptation any less intense. 

“Did you...want to talk about it?” Aziraphale asked, patting his thighs anxiously—his own tea long gone. 

“Not particularly,” Crowley answered. “Not sober, at any rate,” he tacked on. His chest ached as the memories trickled back—the whip and the chain and the sound Rodger’s ribs made as Crowley tore them out through his back.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Aziraphale said, trying to force on a smile. 

Crowley chanced a look at him, seeing only concern in the angel’s eyes as opposed to the judgment and intrigue he expected. 

“I just need some...” _alcohol_ “time,” Crowley said, looking down at his empty teacup. “I… It’s not so much what I experienced. It’s what I did… It’s what I was _going_ to do.”

“I can get the wine, Crowley. If you don’t want to talk about it, we can discuss something else. I’ve… I’ve gotten a new volume for my collection of poetry we might read! Or perhaps we could… We could play a game of chess.”

“Don’t really feel up for games, but I’ll take the wine if you have it,” Crowley said, stretching out his legs and crossing them at the ankles. 

“Of course,” Aziraphale said, getting up and taking away the teacups and tray as he disappeared from the room. Moments later he was back with two glasses and a bottle of wine which he poured expertly. 

Their fingertips grazed each other as he handed over the glass and Crowley ducked his head—feeling a mix of euphoria and shame. When he looked at his hands, all he saw was blood. Faintly, he could see it staining the angle from the smallest, briefest contact. 

“I brought the poetry book,” he said, producing it from under his arm. “Shall I read some?”

He wanted to, Crowley realized. He wanted to share the book with him, so Crowley nodded and forced a little smirk.

“Alright, but only a few.”

By the time they finished the bottle of wine, they’d read all the poems. Well, Aziraphale read them, Crowley tipped his head back against the cushion of the couch and listened, let himself be spirited away by the angel’s gentle voice and the pulse of booze through his blood. 

“Another bottle, my dear?” Aziraphale asked.

“Yesss,” Crowley answered, head swimming pleasantly as Aziraphale stood and walked effortlessly away with the book and empty bottle. When he returned, he had another bottle of wine and a different collection of poetry. “Isss that Shakespeare’sss ssonets?” Crowley hissed.

“Yes!” Aziraphale said, smiling with a hearty pink tint to his cheeks.

Ugh, Crowley couldn’t tell him no when he was looking like that.

“Jussst a few. I’m really too drunk for Shhhhakespeare.”

“Perhaps the second bottle is too much,” Aziraphale said, rather pensively, hesitating to uncork the bottle.

“Didn’t sssay that,” Crowley said, slithering a little closer on the couch as the angel settled in with his book. His limbs were feeling less like limbs and more like tentacles—tails. “Pour us ssssome.”

“You can’t even keep from slurring your words. Perhaps one is enough for tonight.”

“Want to drink with you,” Crowley said, automatically. “Like old times.”

“Old times? We were drinking the other day when you were here.”

“Sssso long ago,” Crowley said, feeling a heavy weight in his chest that quickly trickled away with the first sip of his new glass of wine. Aziraphale poured himself a small bit of wine and settled into reading various sonnets. The old language sounded so natural on his tongue…

Oh, his tongue…

Crowley would love to kiss it. 

Oh, how he hated being unworthy. It felt like years had passed since the day Crowley had been summoned, the day he’d worked up the courage to put his hand on the angel’s knee—to touch him in a way that made evident his feelings. The angle had held him as he fell asleep, had comforted him after rescuing him, but he didn’t know what Crowley had done.

If he knew—if he realized—there was no way he’d hold Crowley so close again. There was no possibility of him ever wanting the demon in his shop again. A holy creature could be ruined by sitting too near a tainted demon...

_”Thou art more lovely and more temperate:_  
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,   
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:   
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines—” 

“I ripped his spine open,” Crowley said, head swaying back and forth as he poured himself his fifth glass. He couldn’t take any more love poems. He couldn’t take hearing words of love fall so easily from the angel’s lips, whether they were directed at him or not. “I took his lungs out while he was still breathing.”

“You… You don’t mean to say… The Blood Eagle? You invented that?”

_“I_ didn’t invent it! Humans invented it. I… I just...used it.”

The angel was quiet a moment and set the book of sonnets aside. 

“My dear… Do you think you could tell me about what happened? I just want to understand. If it’s too painful or you feel overwhelmed, you don’t have to. I would just like to understand—to help, in any way that I can. I promise I will not judge you. I will not look at you any differently. When that whip showed up here, Crowley… Oh, Crowley, my heart _sank._ It had blood and skin...and I just knew something terrible had happened. I knew someone was hurting you and I couldn’t find you. I had no way of tracking you or locating you—no way of saving you.”

“I ripped his bones out, angel,” Crowley whispered. 

“It’s not your fault you were put in that situation. One where you felt the need to resort to your darker impulses. It isn’t your fault—”

Crowley took three gulps of wine, feeling tears burn his eyes as the dark images played over in his mind. He didn’t want to talk about this. He wanted to lie and say he was joking—that he hadn’t hurt anyone, that it had all been a prank, just so he could crawl under the angel’s wing and rest there in the safety of his grace. He wanted to feel how he had before he’d been summoned. He wanted to feel that false, stupid hope that he might be worthy of the angel’s time—and if not worthy, at least a viable candidate for the scraps of affection he might have left laying around. 

“They killed that little girl,” Crowley said, instead of the lie he’d been constructing. “Angel, they _butchered_ her! Right in front of her mother… They put her heart in my mouth. I couldn’t make them stop. They wouldn’t listen—wouldn’t let me heal. I was desperate… I-I had to make sure he suffered for what he did to her. I don’t care so much about what he did to me, but th-that little girl. Oh, angel! She was just a child!”

Suddenly, the wineglass was being pulled out of his hand and Aziraphale had his arm around Crowley’s shoulder in a comforting embrace. Crowley pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut as the tears spilled out beneath his sunglasses. 

How could he let the angel see him like this? Had he no dignity? No pride? 

“My dear… That poor girl is with God. I know that brings you no pleasure and doesn’t undo what has been done, but she will live on in the kingdom of heaven—will bask in Her divine love.”

“Her place is on Earth with her mother! Both sssslaughtered to sssummon me.” His tongue forked again, his skin glossed over in patches of red and black scales that made him tremble with cold.

“Yes… I’m so sorry, my dear boy. I wish I could take that pain. I wish I could undo it all. I wish She had seen and intervened in that awful transgression. I… I don’t know what I can say. Nothing I can offer will soothe you. I know this...” Aziraphale sounded so disheartened, so helpless. 

“Just… Jussst hold me, angel. Pleassse.” The request shocked even him, feeling like he’d uttered a terrible admission he wasn’t ready to make. It came as no surprise when the angel agreed and pulled him closer, curling Crowley into his chest like a scared child being coddled after a nightmare. Aziraphale was too kind a being to throw Crowley out to the cold like he deserved. Aziraphale was an angel too good for Heaven or Earth. “I was going to kill all of those people. They just watched. They watched him butcher that child and her mother, watched him beat me—tried to use me! They wanted to use me—they’re no different than him!”

“They will answer for their actions,” Aziraphale said, his hand suddenly rising to smooth through Crowley’s hair. Crowley’s entire body stiffened in surprise, then slowly relaxed—and relaxed way too far as the alcohol destroyed what was left of his faculties. 

He cried—not loud, broken sobs, but agonized, silent tears shed into the angel’s shoulder. 

He cried because he had killed, because he _hadn’t_ killed, because he was Forgiven and he didn’t deserve it. 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale said, after quite some time of silence had passed.

“Yesss?” Crowley hissed, trying to disguise the all-too-obvious pain in his voice the same way he tried to hide his spreading scales. How disgusting he must look, more snake than man… 

Aziraphale took in a long breath and continued carding his fingers through Crowley’s hair before a gentle flow of words tumbled past his lips. Crowley was quick to recognize familiar Shakespeare.

_“As an unperfect actor on the stage,_  
Who with his fear is put besides his part,  
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,  
Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart; 

_So I, for fear of trust, forget to say_  
The perfect ceremony of love's rite,   
And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,  
O'ercharg'd with burden of mine own love's might. 

_O, let my books be then the eloquence_  
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast;  
Who plead for love, and look for recompense,  
More than that tongue that more hath more express'd. 

_O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:  
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.”_

Something about the words—the way the angel’s voice trembled with them instead of his careful, well-timed measure as he had recited the last ones from the page—made Crowley lift his head. The book was still set aside and Aziraphale’s hands filled only with Crowley’s shoulders and hair as the angel held him.

Crowley’s drunken brain swam back and forth between different things he could say—what he _wanted_ to say. 

‘Trying to tell me something, angel?’

Something quippy about hearing with the eyes? A not-so-subtle jab at Shakespeare and how terrible he really was in the grand scheme of things?

A desperate plea to know if the sonnet was for him—memorized not because Aziraphale loved Shakespeare but rather because he connected with the poem and connected its sentiments—of a love so powerful and overwhelming that it defied words—to Crowley?

He tried to think of something clever—something that might show his feelings in the same way, but also hide them in case he had misunderstood. Oh, he couldn’t bear the thought of misspeaking, misunderstanding now—mistaking words of merely comfort for admissions of love.

What ended up coming out, in Crowley’s drunken, nervous haste, were a few choked sounds and syllables with fractured memories of poetry mixed in. 

“Ngk!—Mine… Mine the fault was… S-Sssomething with poppy-seed wine. Keats? Keats brought… Ngk—Ngg...Nnn— _I am not sorry that I loved you.”_

“Are… Are you trying to quote Wilde? Y-You are, aren’t you? Oscar Wilde… _Flower of Love,_ is it?” Aziraphale asked, looking down at Crowley who was too afraid to meet his eyes. “I have a copy of that work! An original document in his handwriting! Oh—Oh let me find it!” 

Crowley was equal parts mortified and irritated. He wanted to stay where they were—he wanted to keep being held or told to sod off because he’d misunderstood what Aziraphale had been saying. He wanted closure, of any kind, and yet there was Aziraphale glowing with happiness because his mind and his heart were on his long-deceased friend Oscar and not the serpent who didn’t deserve their attention.

Aziraphale was wriggling out from under him and Crowley, without meaning to—honestly!, played dead in his arms.

“I want to read it, Crowley. I want to know what you’re trying to say. I’ll be just a moment.”

Aziraphale was gone in an instant and Crowley forced himself to sit up and reclaim his glass of wine, downing it and sloppily pouring himself one more. His vision was going double and he wanted to both cry and smile—for no real reason at all—as his head spun. 

What had he been thinking trying to quote poetry in this state? He could barely string together enough words to form his own thoughts. 

A few moments later, Aziraphale was tearing back into the room and had dropped heavily onto the couch beside Crowley with a plastic-y photo album in his hands. His thigh was brushing against Crowley’s thigh and the serpent almost dropped his wineglass in his surprise. He managed to take one more sip of the dark red liquid before the angel realized what he’d done.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Crowley!” One hand pulled the wine away from him again and returned it to the table. “Really, you’ve had too much already.”

“Tha’sss easy for you to say,” Crowley slurred, his spine wiggling uncomfortably as it forgot it’s purpose in this body was to stay rigid and straight. 

“Yes, it is. Because I’m not so drunk that my tongue refuses to follow the commands of my brain,” the angel said, smiling at his own little joke. “Come now! I just want to read it with you. Oscar Wilde!”

Crowley sighed and buried his face in his hands while muttering a forced “fine, go ahead.”

And so Aziraphale did, reciting the lines expertly and without hesitation. With each stanza, Crowley felt his heart drain of its fervor. Aziraphale’s voice teemed with his love and admiration—for Wilde. Crowley had misunderstood. He’d taken the sonnet personally and now was being dragged through the romantic proclamations of Aziraphale’s fallen idol. For all Crowley knew, given the handwritten draft of the poem, the words had been written for the angel by that foppish, old playwright. Now Crowley just looked a fool trying to use those words to woo him, and brokenly at that.

That aching heart would have quit beating, though, the very moment Crowley felt the angel’s hand grasp onto his thigh—low and close to his knee—as Aziraphale continued reading line after line, undaunted. 

_“Two lovers lying in an orchard would have read the story of our love...”_ And now the thumb of that visiting hand began stroking circles along the seam of Crowley’s jeans. 

He wanted to sober himself, but couldn’t. He let his mind stay dizzy—with the wine, the spiraling touch, and the words. Oh, what sweet words like “passion,” “kiss,” and “bitter secret.”

_“Yet I am not sorry that I loved you...”_ And, ah! That touch was growing stronger—Aziraphale now squeezing his thigh gently, not just caressing it. 

Hunger, tempest, storm!

Crowley felt so dizzy—so inebriated on more than wine, more than sorrow. 

_“What else had I to do but love you?”_

Crowley grabbed for his wineglass again, unable to handle the words or the slowly sliding hand nestled now at the middle of his thigh—making his already weak heart weaker. Was it possible? Was it truly possible that the words Aziraphale recited were meant for him? Directed at him? He took a long drink from the glass until closing his eyes very nearly made him fall over, and then allowed the angel to take it from him and finish what was left.

“I’ve noticed it for some time now,” Aziraphale said, retracting his hand and placing it in his own lap. “I noticed it, for the first time, I think, back when you asked for Holy Water and I denied you. The way you scolded me… I hadn’t meant to hurt you, and it _hurt_ that I’d hurt you. Truthfully, Crowley, I have lived in fear for very nearly my entire existence. Afraid that the Almighty would cast me down—either because I gave away the sword and then lied about it, or because I had neglected my celestial duties in favor of indulging too much in food or in drink. I felt absolutely certain that before Armageddon either happened or didn’t...She would forsake me for my closeness to you—my feelings towards you. _For_ you. Imagine one of Her angels, masquerading as a demon in Hell simply to spare that demon’s life. How could She forgive that? How could She ignore that? I wondered this...but I understand it now. She doesn’t ignore it—God is all-knowing. I could no sooner hide it from Her than myself. And when you asked me to run away to Alpha Centauri, why, I knew then I oughtn’t be hiding it from you either.”

“It’s good we didn’t go...to Alpha Centauri,” Crowley said, swaying back and forth in his seat—drunk on the words he was hearing as much as the wine. They were beautiful, wonderful, and made his heart ache and leap and plummet in his chest. “’S no wine there. No sushi… No old bookshops...”

“My dear, I should...I should hope that by this moment, you have noticed my...my affections for you. I am a consumer of words, but terrible at harnessing them. I never know what’s the best thing to say and more often than not, I’ve chosen the wrong words and hurt you in some way. It’s my hope that now...with Shakespeare and Wilde—perhaps you do understand. If there’s anything left of your brain by this point in the bottle.” He sounded so disappointed and Crowley heard without seeing, the wine bottle clink on the coffee table. 

Oh dear, his vision had gone all dim and fuzzy, the slightest motions of the angel beside him turned into smears of color shifting back and forth. 

He really needed to sober up before he ended up turning into a serpent on the couch. 

“Should have realized you wouldn’t want to talk about this now… It’s not the right moment at all. I should be focusing more on...on what happened to you than on my own feelings. I told you I’m no good at words.”

“I like your words,” Crowley attempted, trying to get his eyes to adjust and _be human_ for at least another minute or two. Scales he could live with, forked tongue he’d learned to control, but he could not have his vision going serpent—not when he needed to see the look on Aziraphale’s face as they spoke, if not for the sake of simply knowing what the angel felt beyond his ‘hard to harness’ words. “Aziraphale, I… I want to live as a snake in your shop. I want to spend every day with you. Every night and...and any second in between. I could be useful and bite your customers when they try to take your books away. Could… Could be of use to you in any way you like.” 

Crowley didn’t realize he was leaning over sideways the longer he spoke. 

Not until, anyway, he’d crashed over onto the coffee table and had a bottle of wine spilled down his chest. 

“Crowley! That’s it—sober up! Sober up, you clumsy fiend! You very nearly ruined this book of sonnets.”

“Ssssorry,” Crowley slurred, rolling over onto his front—onto the floor—and getting a mouthful of dusty floorboard. If not for his stellar imagination, he was sure a few of his teeth would have been chipped. 

“Sober up!” The angel commanded again.

Crowley listened this time, expelling the wine from his blood—but just a little. Just until his vision cleared back to normal and he was able to keep his limbs under him in order to crawl back onto the couch.

“Can I live in your shop?” Crowley asked before immediately sobering up a bit more.

Where had that come from? That wasn’t what he’d meant to say at all. 

There was a nasty taste in his mouth and he reached for the coffee table, which Aziraphale had quietly miracled into proper order, and grabbed the straightened bottle. It was still a little full and he drank straight from the green glass while the angel gave him a filthy look. 

“I don’t see why you’d want to live in my shop,” Aziraphale said. 

“’Cause it’s where you are. I always want to be where you are. It’s not a coincidence I ended up in Mayfair with you in Soho. I always want to be where you are,” he repeated. Who was bad at harnessing their words now? 

Crowley finished the bottle and chanced a glimpse of Aziraphale’s face. The angel was studying him carefully, then reached out to place a hand on his shoulder. 

“Perhaps not in the bookshop… There’s really not much room for our own spaces, don’t you think? Perhaps in the morning we can talk about it more. Or when you’re more rested...”

Recovered, the word he was looking for was recovered.

“I wouldn’t mind too terribly much if I were to close shop for a while and relocate somewhere else—with you,” he tacked on quickly when the look Crowley passed him was no doubt filled with sudden agony, pain at the thought of being left behind the rubble after just having voiced his bitter secret, his hopeless wish to be anywhere the angel went. “Crowley, I wouldn’t mind relocating somewhere with you.”

He smiled an angelic smile and raised his hand to cup Crowley’s cheek. Drowsily and still a bit drunk, Crowley nuzzled into it and found himself, like a snake, slithering closer and resting his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder while seeking warmth. 

( ) ( ) ( )

They walked side by side up the long gravel drive toward the farmhouse, Aziraphale pausing every few steps to moan and fuss because the aura here was unpleasant.

“I don’t like this place.”

“Well, I don’t like it either,” Crowley retorted. Several months had passed without incident since Aziraphale had summoned him—well, without any summoning incidents. 

“This place just feels...evil!”

“I know it’s evil!” Crowley seethed, his shoulders squaring up as the porch drew closer. He kept his tongue defiantly in his mouth despite his desperate urge to taste the air for Rodger or anyone else who might launch an attack. 

“Well, I don’t mean to sound impolite, but...it feels more evil than you.”

“I don’t make a habit of killing women and children and feeding their hearts to demons either.” Crowley braced himself as he stomped up the stairs to the farmhouse door. He didn’t hesitate a moment before knock—pounding his fist into the wood so hard it cracked.

Aziraphale stood behind him, dressed in a new, white suit with a yellow panama on his head. He looked like he was about to go to dinner on a yacht whereas Crowley was dressed in darker black jeans than his usual semi-faded ones, a black leather coat and a burgundy button-down with his loosened gray necktie. 

“I do wonder if there’s anyone home,” Aziraphale said, fussing with his brown bow tie which happened to match the fabric band around his panama hat.

“They are,” Crowley hissed, and knocked again.

A moment later, there was a metallic click as the door was unlocked and then Angel’s worried face appeared in the gap between the door and the frame. Her face widened in shock and she faltered backwards, screaming and trying hard to stay on her feet while her legs wobbled uselessly beneath her.

“Come, come now—is that really necessary? After all we’ve been through?” Crowley asked, stepping through the doorway as Angel collapsed onto the floor—scrambling backwards for the staircase.

“H-He means you no harm, madam!” Aziraphale offered up helpfully, his voice cracking under the pressure of the home’s “evil” aura.

“C-Crawley! Y-You c-came back!” She exclaimed, still crawling backwards until her back collided with the foot of the stairs.

“Yes. I hadn’t forgotten you. I was simply...called away. Much in the way _you four_ had called me away.”

“W-We g-got rid of the b-bodies. R-Rodger and Davey, w-we burned them in the fi-fire pit,” Angel stammered, tears cascading down her cheeks while a thin trail of clear snot leaked from her nose. “I-I buried the witch and her daughter. Thomas helped. Th-Thomas helped me bury them.”

“What a good deed! Right, Crowley? A good deed? A proper burial for the mother and child?” Aziraphale’s nervous smile faded as Crowley passed him a dark and disappointed look. 

“Angel, let me handle this, would you?” He asked, rolling his eyes when the woman trembling on the stairs asked him what he meant. 

“Well, I don’t know why you brought me if you don’t want my help!” Aziraphale huffed. 

“I _didn’t_ bring you! You _followed_ me here.”

“You told me you want me wherever you are, so here I am! What’s the matter with that?” Aziraphale asked.

At the top of the stairs, the scrawny young man Thomas appeared, holding a baseball bat.

“What do you think you’re doing to Angel!?” He called, not recognizing the demon until Crowley looked up at him. “Ah! C-Crawley! M-Master Crawley—I-I meant you no harm!” To prove his point, Thomas dropped the bat and held up his hands as if Crowley were the police pointing a gun at his head. 

“Master? Oh, Heavens. This has gone too far, hasn’t it?” Aziraphale tutted.

“Angel, go wait in the car,” Crowley growled.

“I-I don’t—”

“Not you!” Crowley hissed when the woman started to answer. 

“I can’t just leave you here,” Aziraphale whispered, even though everyone could hear him. “What if something happens?”

“I am a demon, angel—what’s going to happen?”

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” the woman whimpered, backing up the stairs further, still sitting down.

“Forgive me, madam—I-I take it your name is Angel?” Aziraphale asked, smiling that charming smile which Crowley suddenly wished to smack off of him. 

“Yes?” The woman breathed.

“Well, see, I _am_ an angel. Angel,” he said pointing to her, “angel,” he repeated, pointing to himself.

“She doesn’t _care,_ Aziraphale,” Crowley said. “Please go wait outside. Go outside!”

“You don’t need to be rude,” Aziraphale said, straightening his jacked and fixing Crowley with a poignant pout as he moved to lounge by the open front door. “Carry on, then. But just know...whatever it is you decide to do with them, _I_ will be right here watching. As will...well…you know who,” he said, looking up ward toward the ceiling, i.e. the sky, i.e. Heaven, i.e. God.

“She quit looking at what I do long ago,” Crowley said, turning back to the humans and lowering his sunglasses. “So… What are we going to do with you?”

“M-Master Crawley, w-we beg your forgiveness!” Angel said, her voice warbling like a caught bird. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you when you were taking your revenge on Rodger. I was only a-afraid…afraid he might’ve hurt you, too. I know I disobeyed… I know I disappointed you. Please, please forgive us.”

It felt so awkward to be having this discussion with Aziraphale hovering over his shoulder—and Crowley knew that was exactly why the angel did it. Good luck killing these humans with me here, haha, the angel was thinking. 

Jokes on you, angel, Crowley thought to himself. Wasn’t planning to kill them.

“I believe you must know that as punishment for interrupting, as you put it, you will not receive any reward you were due for saving me from my seal.”

“O-Of course,” Angel said, bowing her head respectfully. She didn’t look disappointed in the slightest—almost, in fact, relieved. 

“Thank you, Master Crawley!”

“Really, now,” Aziraphale interrupted. “It’s _Crowley!_ Crowley!”

“Angel!” Crowley snapped, fixing Aziraphale with a cold glare muted by his sunglasses.

“Well you used to give me such grief if I misspoke. Why do you let them get away with it?”

“Because they’re humans! It doesn’t matter what they call me. They shouldn’t be calling me at all!”

“Master Crowley?” Thomas asked, timidly.

“My dear boy,” Aziraphale said, looking up at the young man, “do you happen to have a computer?”

“Angel, I am _handling_ this!” Crowley growled.

“Er… Ah—Yes? Um… D-Do you need one?” The boy asked, scratching his head. Their fear was draining away into confusion now that Aziraphale’s heavenly grace was making the place radiant, despite its evil past. 

Angel was even getting back onto her feet, her tears long dry. 

“Yes, you see, we have a sort of situation.”

“Delete the website or I’ll burn you alive in this house,” Crowley interjected, fangs showing—scales covering his exposed hands. 

“Website?” Thomas asked, coming down the stairs to rest behind Angel, his hand going to her shoulder in a gesture of comfort. 

“The website you used for summoning me—delete it.”

“I can’t just delete it. I-I don’t own the domain or anything,” Thomas said. 

“You see, we tried to have our friend Newt help us with it, but it seems he broke the computer before he could even get to the web page. Really should have had that nice young lady navigate to the web page first.”

“That’s what happens when _you_ get involved,” Crowley hissed, his drunken plea to be wherever the angel was seeming more and more like a bad idea with each passing day.

“Let me…get my laptop,” Angel said, backing up the stairs—terrified to take her eyes off Crowley—and returned a few moments later with a laptop. It booted slowly and she navigated to the web page. “It’s just a Wiki page. We can’t delete it… We could email and ask them to take it down, but there’s no reason they would listen to us.”

“You’re a demon—can’t you just...wipe it out of existence?” Thomas asked, standing behind Angel who held the laptop in front of Crowley and the rubbernecking angel. 

“Not that easy,” Crowley muttered, glaring at the page so hard that the laptop screen started to flicker. He could break the laptop, but not the website.

“What’s this little pencil here?” Aziraphale asked, pointing to the screen.

“That lets you edit the page,” Angel said, clicking it. “They review your modifications and approve them or reject them. That way any one more knowledgeable can add details over time.”

“They? The original writer?” Crowley asked. That wouldn’t do. If he tried to change anything, Hastur or whoever would just reject it.

“No, the hosts of the Wiki,” Angel said.

“So if I were to click on it and change the sigil...the website owners who _didn’t_ write the article approve it and publish it?” Crowley asked.

“Yes. That’s the idea. Why?”

“Because I’m changing the sigil,” Crowley said, snatching the laptop from her hands and carrying it over to the staircase where he sank down and got to work. 

He had to be _clever_ about it. Had to be _tactful_ so Hastur or Satan himself wouldn’t even notice that their diabolical plan had been foiled. 

In an hour, Aziraphale had brewed tea and had a chat about Heaven and Hell, the importance of repentance, yada yada yada, with the humans and Crowley had expertly drawn a sigil that was neither his name nor any other demon’s, put it through a few filters on a Selfie website Angel was logged into, and uploaded it in place of his own sigil on the webpage. He modified the paragraphs, citing books on demonology that he’d encountered over the years—books that existed but nowhere accessible to cross-reference—and added new details to hopefully make things go smoother if somehow his scheme of changing the sigil was undone at a later time. 

The demon Crawley could only be summoned by the fully clothed, and only if snake-skin boots were being worn by the summoner. Three bottles of wine were required, each at least a decade old. No sacrifices of human or animal flesh would be accepted, though fertilized duck eggs were an okay substitute for those unable to provide wine. (Crowley couldn’t help it. Sometimes his snake form got hungry and nothing beat eggs. If he were to be summoned again, at least he’d be drunk or full by the end of the endeavor.) Lastly, he noted that if any harm were to befall Crawley while summoned into the service of a mortal human—witch, warlock, or otherwise—a fiery entity with many wings and many eyes, holding a scepter and dawning a crown, would appear before the summoner and strike him/her down. (See _Principalities_ ) (See _Angelic Lore_ ) 

Hyperlink, hyperlink, submit for review and done.

There was more Crowley wanted to do in the house, but realized it was an impossibility with Aziraphale hovering intentionally in the space. The angel had just finished recanting the story of Daniel in the Den and Crowley could practically feel his ears bleeding at the recited scripture.

“Let’s go home, angel,” he said, dropping the laptop unceremoniously onto the table in front of the other Angel.

“Oh—Are you finished already?” Aziraphale asked, holding the same dainty teacup in his hand that had been used to serve Crowley when he’d been trapped in the barn.

“Yes. Wrap it up. They were part of a coven. They’re damned anyway. Don’t waste their time with your holy scriptures.”

“They’re most certainly _not_ damned. Not if they repent!”

“They don’t repent. My loyal subjects would never desert me, now would you?” Crowley asked, lowering his sunglasses just enough to fix Angel and Thomas with a cold, calculated stare.

They both shook their heads quickly and muttered words of praise to him which Aziraphale scoffed as he set down the cup and stood to leave.

“Well, if that’s how it’s going to be then I don’t know why I bothered coming,” he said.

“I told you _not_ to come!” Crowley barked, starting for the door as he fixed his glasses.

With the web page amended and two souls cast into eternal damnation, Crowley left the farmhouse. Let that stand as their punishment, Crowley thought as he passed a sidelong glance at the barn he’d been tortured in. They would burn forever, meet real demons who wouldn’t hesitate to cause them harm. But their life, however much was left of it, would not be any worse because of Crowley’s involvement. That was their reward for freeing him, he guessed.

“My dear, is...is that the place?” Aziraphale asked, looking toward the barn as well as they started down the drive.

“Yes.”

“They kept you in there?”

“Yes, angel,” Crowley said, swallowing hard to keep his tongue from forking in his mouth.

“What an awful thing to do… Shame, about the lightning storm.”

“Lightning storm?” Crowley asked, milliseconds before a loud crack filled the air and the barn was set alight with a bright flash. Thomas and Angel came tumbling out of the house, their hands going up in the air as they stared in shock at the rapidly growing flames.

“Yes. Pity… Hopefully they have insurance,” Aziraphale said, straightening his panama as they walked forward down the driveway to the hidden Bentley and climbed inside. “Do you think we could stop for lunch on the way back? I would really love a nice filet of salmon right about now.”

“Whatever you want, angel,” Crowley said with a heavy sigh, eating being one of the very last things he was in the mood to do. No matter, he’d get himself a nice glass of wine and mull it over while Aziraphale sang his compliments to the chef.


End file.
